The Black Prince
by Akemi Homura-san
Summary: Who is Lelouch? To some, he is the Black Prince; to others, he is the Demon of Orleans; and to some, he is a beloved brother. In order to protect his younger sister, Nunnally, and to keep her in a life of comfort without fear of being used, Lelouch has elected to work for the Imperial Throne and the power it gives to protect the one most precious to him. Read and Review.
1. Chapter 1: Purple-Eyed Lelouch

_**July 8, 2009 a.t.b.**_

_The large double doors of the Imperial Palace opened wide to admit a small, slight young man, dressed in finery that cost a sum of money that many a Number would kill to possess, and as soon as it did, that young man strode in, steel in his violet eyes, determination and rage in every step he took. This young man was, as the herald proclaimed, Lelouch vi Britannia, Fourth Prince of the Imperial Family, eleventh in line to the Imperial Throne of the Holy Britannian Empire, of which the city of Pendragon–or, more accurately, the Imperial Palace–was the seat. His mother, Empress Marianne 'the Flash' née Lamperouge vi Britannia, had recently been assassinated by what the official sources cited as "terrorists", though the whole sordid affair had the entire Imperial Court gossiping in their boardrooms and private boxes, even though for the sake of politeness, such things were never discussed in front of Emperor Charles zi Britannia, the boy's sire._

_ Lelouch could hear the hushed gossip that went on around him without flaw; he was nothing if not extremely perceptive, especially when his beloved sister's life hinged upon his success–which, in this case, it very much did. He had waited a long time for his audience with the man before him, and he would not be denied the right to make his inquiry. He stood before his sire, and prepared to say his piece. "Hail, your majesty. My mother, the empress, is dead."_

_ "Old news. What of it?" replied the emperor, his tone one of boredom._

_ "'What of it?'" the boy quoted in disbelief._

_ "You sought an audience with the Emperor of Britannia simply to inform me of that?!" exclaimed the older man, seemingly almost offended. He turned to the herald, bidding him to "Send the next one in. I have no time for these childish games."_

_ "Father!" cried Lelouch, rushing up the stairs to the imperial dais._

_The emperor held off his guards with a raised hand; they retracted with an utterance of, "Yes, your majesty."_

"_Why didn't you keep Mother out of harm's way?!" asked the prince, his tone accusing and full of righteous fury. "You're the emperor, the greatest man in this nation if not the world. You should have protected her, and now you don't even visit Nunnally!"_

"_I have no use for that weakling," he replied dismissively._

"'_That weakling?'" parroted Lelouch, shell-shocked._

"_That is what it means to be royalty."_

_Lelouch was about to proclaim his renunciation of the throne, but something held his tongue; that being, of course, that that would disinherit not only him, but also Nunnally. And while he could endure any hardship, he was loathe to consign his sister to that, even if she was at her peak condition and not in the delicate state she was in currently. At that moment, a certain calmness settled over Lelouch, hardening his heart. Yes, he would be strong and prevail against his impulse for Nunnally's sake, and then he would prove his worth to his sire, in so doing protecting his beloved little sister; he could launch his own investigation into the identity of those who killed his mother at a later date, and in the interim defend his sister's life and honor. For these reasons and others besides, he bowed his head and knelt. "Forgive me, Father. That may be what it means to be royalty. But I do not aspire to be royalty. I aspire to be an emperor! And a true emperor is like unto a god, and as such may be judged by the same criteria. I retract my previous statement. You are a king, and no emperor." _

_With that, he stood and exited the audience chamber, ready to make his way in the world._

_For Nunnally's sake._

* * *

_Eight Years Later…_

[Your highness, we're nearing the area of operation,] said Margrave Jeremiah Gottwald, one of his two personal knights and his closest military confidante, as well as the Knight of Seven. His friend's words shook him from his nap, and in an instant, Prince Lelouch vi Britannia's grip tightened on the yokes of his custom sixth-generation Knightmare Frame, Gawain, and he was ready for what was to come. The dream about his audience before his sire was infrequent, but it did occur from time to time, unfortunately. [You should make certain you're ready; I would hate to have you slip up.]

Lelouch smirked. This banter was normal between them, as his older sister Cornelia had been very recently informed; this mission was a joint command between the two of them, albeit only because Cornelia had more experience, and because Lelouch was known for indulging her protective urges. The Chief General's force was to be the other unit in the pincer that they were executing, and it now fell to him to lead Army Group vi Britannia, otherwise known as the Black Knights due to the color of their sixth-generation Knightmares, to victory once more. "You don't have to worry about me, _Orange-kun,_" teased Lelouch, referencing his friend's personal biggest slip-up (although he wasn't sure it was a mistake even to this day). "I still don't understand why you stick with that old Sutherland of yours and haven't yet upgraded to a Gareth–Lloyd's oh-so-very proud of them."

[I like the feel of this older model better, your highness,] replied Jeremiah. [It has _hands, _your highness; _hands…_]

The prince laughed; Jeremiah was an irrepressible jester when it was just them, and Lelouch wouldn't have it any other way. He made Nunnally laugh, after all, and that alone made Jeremiah's talent truly priceless to the young Britannian royal. A lot had changed in the eight years since he had very nearly given up his claim to the Imperial Throne, but one of the things that had remained constant–or rather, only increased (to a degree that those who weren't all that close to him found almost frightening)–was his devotion to his blind, crippled little sister. It was for his little sister's sake that he fought, that he would continue to fight, until at last he became an emperor to exceed his sire's greatest achievements. This was his one prevailing goal in life, and the one for which he would sacrifice anything and everything that Nunnally did not hold dear–which, for the large part, included some of his closest friends. "Ah, I see. One can never overestimate the value of hands, can they, Jeremiah?" he replied.

[No, your highness. Never,] agreed the turquoise-haired knight.

Lelouch changed his radio channel to the one that would allow him to speak to all his men at once. "This is General Lelouch vi Britannia to all Black Knights. We are nearing our drop zone. When we get there, engage your Float Systems; we will be commencing Operation Sandstorm at eleven hundred hours. All hail Britannia!"

[All hail Britannia!] reported his forces, demonstrating their readiness to engage their targets–the entirety of the Middle Eastern Federation, which would be key for the upcoming invasion of the Chinese Federation that Cornelia had shared with him in confidence. In his own way, Lelouch had become part of Cornelia's inner circle, and likely would even if he _wasn't _her beloved younger brother; he looked forward to sharing in the victory celebrations with Dalton and Guilford, both being former tutors of his, and now, good friends.

The mission timer ran down, and they reached their drop point. Their VTOLs disengaged their tow lines, and one by one the Knightmare Frames under his command, including the special customized Sutherland his knight used, engaged their Float Systems, until finally he, too, did; and when the Gawain joined the battle, enemies were liable to throw down their weapons and surrender so as to avoid their complete and total annihilation. Thankfully (at least, in Lelouch's view), this enemy did not disarm, and instead began to fire; this put a very wide, bloodthirsty Cheshire cat grin on his face. "Operation Sandstorm is a go. Weapons free! All units, engage!"

[Yes, your highness!] proclaimed the Black Knights. The sable Gareth Knightmare Frames swooped in and began tearing into the recalcitrant country's Bamides Frames with their Slash Harkens and arm-mounted Hadron Cannons, utilizing the pinpoint-accuracy of their Druid System-integrated Factspheres to their fullest potential. Their use of Float Systems rendered the Middle Eastern Federation's one advantage, the fact that the landspinners with which all Knightmare Frames were equipped, were ill-suited to use on sand, an advantage which they had used against Cornelia's forces time and again until the Second Princess was forced to concede and send for her younger brother, null and void; a more one-sided battle would be rather difficult to find, in truth. When Lelouch joined the battle in earnest, however, it was all over.

Ever since he had been deployed into actual combat against the European Union at the age of fourteen, where, in his first sortie against enemy Panzer-Hummel Frames, he had destroyed twenty-five enemy units in a then just-out-of-date Glasgow, Lelouch had been classed as an ace Knightmare pilot–a living legend, one oftentimes compared to the Knights of the Round, and, upon such comparisons, more often than not determined to be of a superior caliber. Thus, when he appeared in his Gawain, the outcome of battle was already decided; spreading his arms out wide, he used his shoulder-mounted Hadron Cannons to annihilate twenty-seven of the enemy Bamides Frames in one sweep. Then, when they moved to adapt like Roman legionaries against Carthaginian war elephants (an ironic analogy if ever there was one), he brought his arms in closer together, pointing them at the enemy lines; using mini-Slash Harkens in his Knightmare's fingers, he ripped another eighteen to pieces by converting two at a time into little more than marionettes to use against their fellows. With the efforts of his soldiers, in half an hour, all enemy forces had been taken care of; the Black Knights were thus ready to advance.

* * *

It wasn't long before his forces rendezvoused with Cornelia's, and when they did, the remainder of the enemy's troops were razed, more by the Black Knights and their advanced Knightmare Frames than by Cornelia in her desert-adapted Gloucesters and Sutherlands. By midday, the battle was over, and where once the Middle Eastern Federation had stood, nestled in between two greater powers that were both at least nominally hostile to Britannia, Area Eighteen had been established. Tehran was the city at which the nation's sovereignty was handed over to the invading forces–specifically Cornelia–and in the conquered city, the siblings met.

"Hail Cornelia, Goddess of Victory," called the ace from the open cockpit of his Gawain. "Shall we adjourn for lunch with your loyal subordinates?"

Cornelia, flanked by Gilbert Guilford, her knight, and General Andreas Dalton, her oldest general, turned with a bemused smile upon her face, hand upon her hip as she looked up at her little brother, perched atop his monumental Knightmare. Lelouch's command uniform consisted of a dark purple outfit that, with his white cravat, looked like a cross between a Victorian-era suit and a Knightmare jockey bodysuit, and upon his shoulders was a high-collared, gold-rimmed, red-lined black cloak. His hands were clad in high-dexterity black gloves, and there was an aural mouthpiece clipped to the side of his face, the lower half of which was covered by a black cloth mask, but other than that, his outfit lived up to his moniker in almost every way. When she nodded, he looked as though he was smirking before he leapt up into the air, flipped, then landed on his feet, nimble as a cat–a testament to the thoroughness of the conditioning he had been putting himself through since he decided to join the military at the age of nine, before she left on her first tour of duty.

They went to a small café within the city limits that had a good view of the city, with the Black Knights having taken the square to exit their Knightmares and see to their maintenance, and Cornelia's forces in the park and the since-commandeered military base. They were soon joined by Jeremiah and his former squire, Baroness Villetta Nu, and when they all were together, they enjoyed the spoils of their conquest. "I have to say, Lelouch," remarked Cornelia, starting off the conversation. "When I first heard that you were forming an all-Knightmare force, I thought it a foolish idea. And yet, here we are, gazing upon the fruit your idea has borne. I am sorry to have doubted it."

"Don't be; it _was _a foolish idea. I just was able to make it work," replied Lelouch, waving his hand dismissively as he used the other one to pull down his mask. "Normally, even with the amount of sakuradite Area Eleven produces, an all-Knightmare force would be a logistical horror story, with fabrication and the facilities to conduct it being the primary issue. I was in a unique position, since my quick action was able to save the Ashford Foundation, whose Knightmare production capabilities rivalled any other in the market, and now is larger than all of them combined. But even then, I would not have had success had it not been for the present Schneizel gave me for my fifteenth birthday after the Battle of Orléans. I speak, of course, of Earl Lloyd Asplund, the head of Camelot. His genius and my demands birthed the Gawain, and thus the Float System, the Druid System, the Hadron Cannon–all the hallmarks of the sixth generation of the Knightmare Frame. Truly, with him and my friend, Milly Ashford, at the helm, the new Camelot is the engine of the Black Knights' success."

"Oh? Well, _I _for one think you're being too modest, Lelouch," stated Cornelia matter-of-factly. "Certainly, all these resources working in concert are the engine of the Black Knights' success, but it was _you_ who got them working in concert in the first place."

"His highness is always too modest. It is his way," said Jeremiah.

"Well, he was an excellent student; that much is for sure," said Dalton.

"I agree," stated Guilford in that curt way of his. "I've heard him described as an 'ace of aces' by some, in fact."

"That's the media's doing. I've been trying to get Diethard to get them to stop, but so far, he's been having no success. I have no need of any title save 'emperor'," dismissed Lelouch. "Once I have attained that title, and Nunnally is safe, then the media can do as they please. But until then, I would have them hold off on the laurels. The war isn't won yet."

"As driven as ever, I see," laughed Cornelia. "You used to make Euphy jealous, you know that? She could never match up to you."

"That was not my intention, but if I am to protect Nunnally from being used as a pawn, I must be useful enough for the both of us," he stated. "That was what I learned from that day eight years ago. Our sire has learned what it is to be royalty at the price of forgetting what it means to be family; I cannot change that, and so I must adapt to it. It is that simple."

She nodded. "A wise sentiment."

"Actually, speaking of Princess Nunnally, is it not her birthday tomorrow?" asked Jeremiah.

"Yes, which is why I'm hoping I can finish up here by today," said Lelouch. He turned his head to look out the window. "I can take the majority of the paperwork with me to the homeland. I'm almost finished with what needs to be done here. I'll file the recall orders this afternoon and fly out tonight. Hopefully, I can be back in the Aries Villa by tomorrow morning to make Nunnally breakfast in bed. I'd like to bring the Gawain back with me if at all possible; if not, I'll have to order a Camelot plane to pick it up. The Gawain's size is prohibitive in that normal transport methods will damage it, and I _don't _want to get lectured by Lloyd. I've seen him in action, and the man can be blood-chilling when he wants to be."

"Well, well, well, I never thought that I'd see Prince Lelouch vi Britannia, General of the Black Knights, cowed by a technician," chuckled Guilford.

Lelouch smiled good-naturedly. "Well, why wouldn't I be? Technicians hold our lives in their hands, after all, Lord Guilford," he replied.

"I…yes, I suppose that _is _in fact the case, yes," commented Guilford, his face slightly troubled and officially chastised.

"Well, since we're on the subject of the Black Knights and technicians," said Villetta, pulling forth a digital clipboard and handing it to her commander, "the Maintenance Corps wants your permission to check the Gareths and prepare them to be loaded onto the delivery planes."

"Give it here," said Lelouch, putting out his hand to receive it. Villetta handed it to him, and he took a stylus out of his breast pocket, then signed his name and handed it back to her. "Tell them I want them ready to begin shipping when I give the order tomorrow."

"I will."

Then their coffee and food came, cutting off all talk of business and soldiery.

* * *

_October 25, a.t.b. 2017_

The Aries Villa was a beautiful estate; nestled in the more rural area of Pendragon, its aerial gardens were remembered by all who had lived there or stayed there for its carefully-cultivated beauty. The mansion at its center was no less beautiful, being, much like Versailles, in the Rococo aesthetic from an architectural standpoint, with carefully-gilded elegance being the norm in the more complex room. The designer obviously had a very _particular _taste in mind, but Nunnally vi Britannia, the manor's primary permanent occupant, loved living in it and loved her memories of it–or so she had expressed to her older brother, Lelouch; he, for one had no idea what went on in Nunnally's mind, but seeing as Nunnally had no reason to lie to him, he took her word for it and acted accordingly. Making sure his sister was comfortable, safe and happy was a bit of an obsession Lelouch's, after all–restitution for almost giving up their claim to the throne, as well as a symbol of his adoration of his younger sibling.

Lelouch, dressed in his casual clothes, snuck in very quietly, being very careful not to wake the household staff and make them privy to his actions, and thus making Nunnally privy to them. He set down his effects and proceeded into the kitchen to start off his little sister's birthday in earnest, as he wished for it to be; a half-hour later, he, carrying a tray of food, came to the double-doors of her bedroom. Balancing said tray in one hand, he quietly opened one of the doors, then once again gripped the tray in both hands and slipped, silent as a cat, into the chamber; he set the tray of food onto her nightstand table, then leaned over and placed a tender kiss upon his sister's brow. She stirred from her rest, reaching up and placing her hand on his face, though her eyes, as ever, remained firmly closed. "Brother?" she called in that weak, breathy voice of hers. "Is that you, Lelouch?"

"Yes, it is. Happy birthday, Nunnally," he replied, his tone gentle.

Her face lit up, and a great, astonished smile bloomed upon her face. "Oh, Lelouch!" she called, getting up and throwing her arms around her brother with a kind of energy she very rarely exhibited–it reminded him of when they were children, honestly, which he refused to allow to make him sad. This was a _happy _occasion, after all–the anniversary of his beloved little sister's birth–and he was not going to allow himself to ruin it by clinging to old memories. He really wasn't the type, in any case. "You're back!"

"Yes, I'm back. I brought you gifts from the field–but first, it's time for you to eat," he remarked. "You can't celebrate your birthday on an empty stomach, now can you?"

She shook her head, no, and he helped her lift herself into an upright seated position, replacing the pillows that had been under her head to help support her back. In turn, he brought the tray over from the nightstand and balanced it upon his lap, cutting the omelet he had prepared into pieces and feeding them one by one to his sister; since she could not see, Lelouch or someone else had to do this, or else risk her stabbing herself in the leg with a fork or something of that nature–the legs in particular were a danger since she could feel nothing in them, which could lead to her bleeding out without her noticing. Or perhaps that was just the overprotective brother in him being anxious; it did not matter to him, however. On the battlefield, he had learned well the lesson that if one expects the worst, then one is prepared when the worst befalls them, which did little and less to help him curb his protective tendencies.

When she had been fed, he brought her wheelchair over from where it sat in the corner of her room, picked her up out of bed in an admittedly totally unnecessary show of strength and placed her in the seat; then he wheeled her down the ramp that he had ordered installed with his first paycheck from his commission in the military. They reached the ground floor and then on to the solar in just enough time to receive the day's first visitors–none other than the illustrious (or notorious, depending upon who you asked) Earl Asplund and Lady Ashford, commonly known to the two who received them as Lloyd and Milly. Attending them were their assistants; for Lloyd, it was Cecile Croomy who accompanied him, and for Milly, Rivalz Cartemonde, who occasionally doubled as her chauffeur.

"Well, look at Princess Nunnally–fifteen years old already, eh?" joked Lloyd in his sing-song voice; given his behavior when sober, Lelouch did _not _wish to know what he was like when drunk. "I believe congratulations are in order, hmm?"

Nunnally giggled at the eccentric scientist's antics. "Hello, Lloyd. How have you been? It seems like _forever _since I've se–I mean, _met _with you."

"I've been better, your highness, but I can't complain. After all, I've got the challenging task of keeping your brother happy with my work–and you know what they say; slave-driving taskmasters are the fathers of inspiration and invention!" replied Lloyd.

"And _you, _Miss Cecile?" asked Nunnally.

"O…oh, your highness, I've been doing just fine. I mean, as fine as I can be when I have to keep _this _lout on task," she responded, elbowing Lloyd none-too-gently in the side.

"_Ouch! _What was _that _for?" demanded the earl.

"Oh, nothing," answered Cecile, smiling sweetly. "Don't worry about it."

"I swear, your highness, one of these days you're going to lose your division head because _this _one put poison in my coffee," complained Lloyd. "Arsenic, most likely. 'I thought it was sugar,' she'll say, as innocent as can be–with that same smile on her face, even."

Milly laughed; Nunnally turned her head in her friend's direction. It was a laugh that she would presumably know anywhere. "Milly? You're here too?"

"Of course, Nunnally; why wouldn't I be?" replied the current head of the Ashford Consortium. "Is there any particular reason why you wouldn't want me here?"

"Of course not. It's just that Lelouch said that you were really occupied with the work you were doing with Nina, and that he wouldn't be surprised if you forgot a special occasion you're supposed to be attending," explained the princess. "That's all."

"Well, I'd have a hard time of that since your brother has your birthday circled on all his calendars–including the one he keeps at his office here in the Homeland," Milly responded. "I mean, literally every time I'd use my key to go in there to get some papers or forms or some such nonsense, I'd have to go, 'oh, it's Nunnally's birthday on the twenty-fifth of October.'"

"Really, Lelouch?" asked the now-fifteen-year-old girl. "_Every _calendar?"

"Of course," the prince answered honestly, purposefully not responding to his little sister's jibe. "I didn't want to forget and wind up in the field on your birthday and have to ask Sayoko to give you your presents."

"And me!" called Princess Euphemia li Britannia as she entered the Villa's manor herself, accompanied by Lord Gino Weinberg, her personal knight as well as the Knight of Three. "Happy birthday, Nunnally!"

"Yeah! Happy birthday, your highness!" called Gino. "Boy, have you grown!"

"Hello, Euphy," called Nunnally, visibly a bit annoyed by the timing of their entry. "You too, Lord Weinberg."

"Aw, I've told you before, your highness; _please _just call me Gino. Lord Weinberg is my father," complained the brash young blond-haired aristocrat. "Hey, Lloyd."

"Gino," greeted the blue-haired scientist, perhaps a bit coolly–Gino of going through Knightmares as if they were cheap, which was both how he had made Knight of the Round and how Lelouch had trounced him in the last four of the annual Knightmare tourneys the emperor held in Pendragon. "Have you scrapped yet _another_ Knightmare?"

"Oh, don't be like that, Lloyd! They just can't keep up!" said Gino, slinging his arm around Lloyd's shoulder.

"I shudder to think what you'll do with the Lancelot once it's completed," replied Lloyd tersely. Lelouch almost moved to head off one of Lloyd's lectures, which, it seemed, he only ever gave to Gino–not that it helped matters, mind you–but Milly beat him to it. The prince smirked and moved to greet Euphemia.

"AHEM. Hey, Gino," called Milly, her face set into a deceptive smile.

"Oh! Milly…I mean, Lady Ashford!" cried Gino, his cheeks reddening as he bowed deeply. "Please, forgive me; I didn't see you there."

"Wow. This is the first time I've ever seen Gino act so chivalrously," whispered Euphemia, her eyes wide in astonishment.

"You've obviously never seen him around Milly before, then," Lelouch replied in the same low voice. "Love is truly a very powerful transformative force–and the strings with which Milly controls Gino like a marionette."

"She's _aware _that he has a crush on her?"

"Of course; Milly is nothing if not perceptive. She's also a notorious sadist, and treats her suitors like playthings to advance the goals of Camelot and the Ashford Consortium both. It's a game to her–a grand game where they fight each other over her favor for her amusement. She's utterly ruthless. I'm just glad she's on my side."

Euphemia nodded her agreement; if this was what Lady Millicent Ashford wrought on those who were their allies, then she almost pitied their enemies for what she could do to them. It was then that true fear of the scion of the Ashford family and her capabilities were sown, took root and bloomed within her. She shuddered.

"Don't worry; she only targets those who seek her hand and those I set her upon. In a way, you could say that she's my most trusted lieutenant outside of Jeremiah and Lloyd," assured Lelouch, watching as Rivalz rose to challenge Gino, and they began to squabble. "You have nothing to worry about, and on that note, neither does your knight; out of all those who seek her hand, Gino is her favorite. His energy and tenacity _entertain _her." He turned away from his sister and clapped his hands twice, bringing the attention of the entire room onto him as the servants scurried about in the background to their respective posts. "Excuse me, but I do believe we're here to celebrate my little sister Nunnally's birthday."

"Of course," the two combative suitors replied in unison; this led to them giving each other dirty looks, but no further eruptions.

"Nunnally, I come bearing three presents for you," I stated. "The first is on behalf of our sister, Cornelia, who, due to the establishment of Area Eighteen yesterday, could not be here today; the second, on behalf of the Black Knights, who all pitched in to get you a single massive present; and the third, my personal gift to you."

"Brother, I…"

"Why don't we start off with the Black Knights' present?" he interjected, cutting off her protest. "Will that be acceptable, or would you rather another order to the opening of gifts?"

"No, that will be fine," she decided.

Just then, however, Lelouch's phone rang–specifically, the tone to which he had assigned Villetta. He handed the present off to Lloyd to open for Nunnally as he moved into another room and took the call. The princess pretended to be engaged in the present-giving, especially as one present blended into the next, as she continually put off opening her brother's present in hopes that he would return before she opened it. When she heard his outraged cry from the next room, her hopes sank into a knot at the pit of her stomach; it appeared they would not get the chance to spend her birthday together. At that moment, Lelouch stormed in, yanked Lloyd over to the corner and whispered the contents of the call to him; as she did, the sinking feeling increased, until finally, her worst suspicions were confirmed. "What?! They stole the Lancelot?!" cried Lloyd, hands on his head in horror, thus allowing everyone to know what was in the works.

"The Japan Liberation Front, the foremost anti-Britannian force on the island, has stolen the plans to the Z-01 Special Weapons Prototype Knightmare Frame, Codename: 'Lancelot.' The Emperor's deploying the Black Knights and me to Japan now to deal with the problem," said Lelouch to the party. He walked forth and knelt before his little sister. "I'm sorry, Nunnally, but this order comes down from His Majesty. I have no choice. I'll make it up to you, though."

"You promise?" she asked worriedly.

"I promise," he replied. "I'd never lie–not to _you, _anyways."

* * *

_Later That Night..._

"Alright, listen up," ordered Lelouch from the cockpit of the Gawain. "You of the Zero Squad, we've been dispatched by an order from the top to Area Eleven; from there, we will deploy into what has been confirmed to be the enemy's base of operations in the Narita Mountains. Our objectives are to secure, or, if necessary, destroy the Z-01 Lancelot, and to capture or eliminate former Camelot scientist Doctor Rakshata Chawla, whose defection two years ago is how the OSI believes the Japanese were able to construct our military hardware. The target in question is a seventh-generation Knightmare Frame, so if it goes active, leave it to me; I'll deal with its devicer."

[Yes, my lord,] responded the Zero Squad, the fifteen most elite of the devicers under his command and his personal guard. They were currently in their cockpits, their VTOLs transporting them to the drop point as always, so that they did not have to waste an ounce of the power that lay in their energy fillers, and minutes away from being deployed.

"Keep your eyes sharp. The enemy will be using Knightmare Frame derivatives known as '_Gekkas_,' which are analogous to sixth-generation Knightmares; they are highly mobile and agile on the ground, and quite hardy as well, but they possess nothing like a Blaze Luminous. Keep your wits about you and they should prove no trouble. Their armaments seem to be an arm-mounted automatic gun and one '_Katen Yaibat__ō__,_' a weapon that, while not as effective as an MVS, will still do the job, and a single chest-mounted Slash Harken. These are built for close combat, and you all know what that means. They also may be using a '_Raik__ō__,_' an anti-Knightmare weapon modified from a Glasgow that apparently fires high-velocity shrapnel. When you encounter this, close fast; at range, the Raikō's shrapnel-scatter will prove too wide a field for your Hadron Cannons to eliminate, but when up close, the Raikō is a sitting duck. Understood?"

[Yes, my lord,] they responded again.

"Very good," replied Lelouch, smirking inside of his Knightmare, his head cocked with his chin propped up against his fist. "Then let Operation Euthanize commence. All hail Britannia!"

[All hail Britannia!]

The lock bolts on their Knightmare Frames disengaged.

And the mission began.


	2. Chapter 2: The White Knightmare

_October 25, a.t.b. 2017_

It was a quiet night when the Zero Squad of the Black Knights struck, so calm and peaceful that Lelouch felt almost guilty for ripping its atmosphere asunder with the attack he and his personal guard launched at twenty-three hundred hours, local time. Still, they had a job to do, and they were determined to do it; Lelouch in particular took exception to being pulled away from celebrating his little sister's birthday, and so he toyed with the yokes of the Gawain impatiently as the VTOLs flew through the skies of Area Eleven, spoiling for a good fight–_The JLF had better make restitution for taking me away from Nunnally on her _birthday_; if they don't, I'll hand their command staff over to the OSI. Hell, I'll even present General T__ōdō's head to the Emperor on a silver platter myself, _he thought inwardly, a smug smirk on his face and a look of absolute malevolent cruelty in his eyes. Anyone who knew him would know by his expression at that precise moment that Prince Lelouch vi Britannia was _beyond _pissed. And so, it was with a profound sense of relieved finality that he took control of the Gawain and activated its float system as its lock bolts disengaged, signaling that they had reached the prescribed area of operation for the night's mission.

The black-painted Gareths and single Sutherland of his elite Zero Squad followed him as his Knightmare shrieked through the air, the force of the prince's irritation making itself manifest through his piloting. His fellows, especially Jeremiah, who had known Lelouch the longest out of everyone there, were put ill at ease around him, knowing exactly how astronomically irritable he was, especially given what he had been pulled away from. Still, they put their heads down and did their jobs, and when the Gawain stopped before the mountain that was their target, they knew to get out of his way just in time; he, knowing them to be professional enough to do this, and being familiar enough with him to understand his intentions for the next few moments, cast the Gawain's arms out wide and fired his shoulder-mounted Hadron Cannons, ripping open the side of the hidden rebel base to the cool air of the night sky. Knowing that radio silence was optimal this close to the enemy–though how they expected to accomplish subtlety since the entire side of the mountain had been blasted to oblivion none of them knew–they kept to it as they entered the base's corridors; as they hit ground, their landspinners deployed, and the mission was officially a go.

* * *

General Tōdō Kyōshiro of the Japan Liberation Front, and secretly of the Japanese military, was a calm man, practical by nature; the so-called Miracle of Itsukushima did not change _that _about him, at least. This Kururugi Suzaku, son of Kururugi Genbu, the prime minister of what was left of Japan after the war seven years prior, knew well, even as he ran into the cockpit of the Lancelot, whose design was stolen from the Britannians. He had been trained to pilot this thing for the last five years of his life, and now that he looked upon it, he was rather disappointed; still, his disappointment didn't matter in this instance. He would pilot the Lancelot for his people, the citizens of what was once a proud island nation, since reduced to a little less than half its original territory. And so when General Tōdō ordered that the Lancelot be ready for combat once an approaching Britannian force appeared on the radar, he did not question whether or not it was necessary for Tōdō to give such an order, and rather rushed to obey, for the sake of his father, his cousin and all the people he had sworn to protect. It was the only logical thing to do, after all; this knowledge passed through his mind as he inserted the Lancelot's key and entered the password, starting up the software and activating the first seventh-generation Knightmare Frame the world had ever seen.

The white Knightmare shot forth from its bindings, its landspinners hitting ground as it progressed onward through the corridors of the Japan Liberation Front's secret mountain base at Narita. Acting on ingrained instructions, Suzaku pulled forth the twin Master Vibration Swords with which the Lancelot was equipped, crossing them and then readying them for the first enemy contact. He came up behind one of their Raikōs, blasting through the smoke that resulted from its explosion, and then deployed his Factspheres to analyze the enemy Frames. _Gareths, _he thought to himself as his mind recognized the black Knightmare Frames he was to be put up against. _Sixth-generation Knightmares whose weakness is in close combat. However, at range their Hadron Cannons will ignore the Blaze Luminous as if it wasn't even there. Given that, the most viable strategy is to get in close. _

The moment he attempted to close to engage his targets, they danced away from the blades of his dual MVSs, expertly dodging his Slash Harkens and withdrawing. "Why won't you fight me?!" he asked them as they retreated. "You cowards!"

"Well, well, well, Rakshata and her team managed to actually develop a working model of the Lancelot, were they?" an unknown voice asked rhetorically, its words broadcasted from the Knightmare that was three times larger than any other in the base. Suzaku realized at that moment that he had been had; the enemy had retreated to the breach, and in so doing, drawn him in like a fish on a line. The Factspheres began giving him readings that he refused to believe were right as they took in the sight of the infamous Gawain, levitating just outside the base, arms outstretched. The wreckage from dozens of Gekkas was littered throughout the corridors, but in particular was concentrated there, where the Gawain's Hadron Cannons had burst through; some of the armor plates from the neutralized and destroyed Japanese Frames were still orange and smoking, blasted apart by the intense heat the Knightmare's main weapon produced. All of these things registered at once to the rookie pilot, and next he knew, the Gawain was charging him head-on. "We'll just have to rectify that, now won't we?!"

_Is he insane?! _Suzaku thought to himself as he swiftly backed out of the way of the charging Knightmare; he tried to slash downwards with one of his MVSs, but his attack was batted aside, and the Gawain planted its foot into his midsection, propelling him backwards and into the rock face. The huge black Knightmare propelled itself backwards through the air off of that kick, tossing its arms out wide and blasting its Hadron Cannons, which Suzaku just barely managed to dodge, blocking the glancing blow with his Blaze Luminous. Gekkas came by from the other side of the corridor, firing at the Knightmare, but the Gawain landed and dropped low to the ground, lifting its free hand and launching five mini-Slash Harkens that ripped apart as many of the Japanese Frames; it then charged the remainder, dodging the high-velocity bullets that came flying its way as it went, and slashing with something the identity of which did not become apparent until its motion ceased, and Suzaku's allies' Gekkas exploded. _A Master Vibration Sword?! _

"Still wet behind the ears, pilot of the Lancelot?" taunted the Gawain's pilot as he levelled the MVS, which was seemingly designed after a European bastard sword, at Suzaku in the Lancelot's cockpit. "This sword is called Excalibur. Mark it well, for it shall be the instrument of your _destruction!_" With that, the Gawain charged the Lancelot.

"The Gawain? Excalibur? Of course! How could I forget?!"Suzaku thought out loud as he moved just in time to parry the other Knightmare's MVS, then tried for a riposte with his other MVS, which his opponent dodged more nimbly than his Knightmare should have allowed. "This is Lelouch vi Britannia, the Black Prince!"

"Zero Squad, cover me! None shall interfere!" ordered the one Suzaku now knew to be Prince Lelouch, the Demon of Orléans.

"Yes, your highness," the fourteen Gareths and one Sutherland responded, moving to blast their arm-mounted Hadron Cannons down the corridor at the JLF's Gekkas as they tried to advance. The Gawain spun, bringing Excalibur around in a horizontal arc that Suzaku just managed to stop, though it jarred his Knightmare. _Losing on mobility? Preposterous! I have the newer model–one meant for a Knight of the Round! _thought the young pilot. He fired his Slash Harkens directly towards the Gawain, though it flipped and twisted and dodged out of the way of each one and fired ten of its own at the Lancelot. Suzaku was not so skilled as the Black Prince, however; he took a glancing blow to the face that destroyed half of the Lancelot's head, and his arm got clipped by another, though the others were very near-misses. _That Knightmare is ridiculous! It should be too big and bulky to move like that! Prince Lelouch isn't as good as they said–he's _better_! As much as I hate to admit it, I need to retreat and regroup with General Tōdō's forces; I haven't got a _chance _out here!_

"Let him go," ordered Lelouch as he watched the Lancelot turn tail and run; he sent one of his Slash Harkens into one of the white Knightmare's landspinners as it went, and it exploded as the pilots of the Zero Squad responded with their affirmation. _So, this is the power of the Z-01 Special Weapons Platform Lancelot, _he thought, glancing over the data the Gawain's Druid System had gathered and recorded. The results were impressive almost to the point of being astonishing; had the plans not been stolen, the Lancelot might have given Gino a fair shot at the annual tourney, a change of pace from the frightful bore the competition had become for Lelouch over the past few years. _Lloyd will be pleased by this, I think; it will more than make up for the fact that I have no intention of letting this Knightmare Frame survive. _"He'll lead us back to their forces, and since we don't know the layout of this place, we're at a disadvantage in that area. After all, we need to capture or kill Doctor Chawla."

"A wise strategy, your highness," commended Jeremiah from within his black Sutherland.

"Thank you, Jeremiah," responded Lelouch. _Tōdō Kyōshiro, I'm coming for you…_

* * *

"What are our losses?!" General Tōdō demanded of Chiba Nagisa, one of the Four Holy Swords, his personal force, and among them, the only female. "How many of our men and Frames have these blasted Britannians taken from us?"

"Most of our Gekkas have been destroyed, sir; half in the initial attack, and then every force we sent as backup was systematically eliminated," replied the woman. "This attack seems to be by a force of sixteen Knightmares. Recon said they were elite; that they were most probably a division of Army Group vi Britannia, otherwise known as the Black Knights."

"It's true," confirmed Suzaku as he entered into the JLF's command center, still dressed in his jockey's bodysuit. "The attack is being led by forces under the command of the Black Prince, Lelouch. The enemy forces consist of fourteen Gareths, a Sutherland, and the Gawain itself. The Demon of Orléans is here for our heads."

"Then our attackers must be the Zero Squad," Tōdō deduced. "That means that Jeremiah Gottwald, the Knight of Seven, is among their number. Damn it!" He pounded his fist into the nearby table in frustration. "We'll need to evacuate. The Four Holy Swords, the Lancelot and I will cover the others. Put the word out. We are retreating to Japan."

* * *

"Your highness, the JLF seems to be retreating to Japanese territory," said Jeremiah as he entered the central command center, where Lelouch was looking at the consoles, casually assessing their functions; the Knight of Seven knew that pattern of behavior to mean that his lord was looking for something in particular. "What are you searching for?"

"The JLF appeared ready to fight to the death to defend their base, but are now retreating. They're panicked and harried; our reputation precedes us, it seems," mused Prince Lelouch. "But that is good for us; they're bound to have left behind some valuable information." His eyes locked onto a rather ordinary-looking console, and he walked forth, activating it and typing rapidly. "The fools forgot to cover their tracks. If they get to the Japanese border, we can no longer follow them; else, we risk an international incident, which will no doubt incur for me the ire of my older brother, Schneizel. But that is unimportant; it is clear to me that our target, Doctor Rakshata Chawla, is not here, and has not been here for months." He typed further, bringing up window after window of information that he scanned rapidly and closed down. "Look! There's a direct line between a location in the Hokkaido region and the base here at Narita. I'm working backwards now to wipe all copies of the Lancelot's plans save the one that's on this computer." As he said this, he pulled a flash drive from his inner lapel pocket, slipping it into the appropriate port and allowing the program on it to upload. "Only time will tell if we succeed."

"I understand, your highness," responded Jeremiah, bowing deferentially.

"Jeremiah, my knight, I would have you take your most trusted pilots from the Zero Squad, pursue the JLF and hunt them down like the insolent curs they are," informed the Black Prince. "I must stay here and do some cleaning up, and then I must contact his majesty to inform him of our mission's status. I cannot accompany you. Make sure our work is done."

"I assure you, your highness," Jeremiah replied. "Those dogs will not reach Japan alive."

Under his mask, Lelouch smirked.

* * *

The Hadron Cannons of the four Gareths following them ripped up the ground beneath their landspinners, and the rearguard of the retreating JLF forces danced to avoid being torn apart by the advanced weaponry with which their enemies were equipped. "It is the will of his highness that these dogs not be able to turn tail and run with impunity!" cried the voice of the pilot of the single black Float System-equipped Sutherland, who Suzaku knew to be the Knight of Seven. "Annihilate these dogs in his name! All hail Britannia!"

"Suzaku!" called General Tōdō.

"Right! On it!" he replied, dashing forth in the Lancelot and firing his Slash Harkens at the flying fifth-generation Knightmare Frame; the Sutherland spun through the air, dodging his attack far more accurately than he should have been able to. _Ah, I see, _thought Suzaku. _This is the skill of a Knight of the Round. _He gritted his teeth. _Regardless!_

"Is that all you've got?! How pathetic!" taunted the margrave. His Knightmare fired its own Slash Harkens, which Suzaku found easier to dodge than the Gawain's, but not by much. The Sutherland took a pair of Knightmare lances off of its back and threw them at Suzaku, forcing him to dodge both them and the Slash Harkens; he managed to dodge one, but not both, and the other one got him cleanly through the Lancelot's arm.

_Damn it! _Suzaku thought to himself as the Sutherland charged him. _At this rate, I'll…_

The Sutherland backed off from a rain of bullet fire and the five Slash Harkens that the Four Holy Swords and General Tōdō launched from cover. "Onward!" cried the pilot, and in accordance with his orders, the four Gareths fired on the Four Holy Swords; Urabe, Asahina and Chiba managed to dance out of the way, but Senba was not so lucky–he dodged one stream of enemy fire only to be annihilated by the next before he could eject. He didn't even have time to scream before he died.

"_Senba!_" cried Tōdō. "You Britannian bastards! You'll pay for that!"

"That is the fate of all who defy the Holy Britannian Empire–and all those who defy our lord, Prince Lelouch!" replied Jeremiah. "Learn this well, you rebellious dogs! All that awaits you is annihilation followed by an eternity in Hell! All hail Britannia!"

* * *

"Hail, your majesty. I, Lelouch vi Britannia, Fourth Prince of the Empire, do hereby contact you with this interim mission report, in accordance with the OSI procedures attached to missions such as this," said Lelouch, bowing before the onscreen image of his sire in his private offices at the Imperial Palace in Pendragon. "One of the primary mission objectives has already failed–according to evidence, which has been confirmed by the JLF's computers, Doctor Rakshata Chawla has not been here for at least a month. As such, we cannot capture or kill her."

"Regrettable, but the mission objective's failure was due to faulty conjecture on behalf of my men in the OSI, not due to your own mistakes. I hereby void that order, then," stated Charles zi Britannia. "Continue."

"As you will, your majesty. I have managed, however, to recover the plans for the Z-01 Special Weapons Platform Lancelot, as well as destroy any electronic copies they may have made," the prince explained. "I am sending the data my Gawain's Druid System gathered on it directly to Earl Lloyd Asplund, the head of Camelot, together with the plans. Now, even if we fail to capture or destroy the Lancelot, they shall not make another one–the Lancelot was not meant for mass-production, after all, and without the plans, the JLF will never be able to make the necessary modifications for that to become an option. The only repairs they should be able to make are makeshift ones; and even if that proves ineffective, it is no matter. They have but one Britannian Knightmare Frame on their side, whereas we have the capability to change the rules of war before they do. The nature of this mission has changed, your majesty; would you acknowledge that much, at least?"

"I do," he replied. "Your words have merit, Lelouch; in light of what you have said, I shall declare your mission completed. You are to withdraw immediately."

"As your majesty commands," responded the black-haired young man, bowing low.

"Oh, and Lelouch," continued the emperor. "I'm sorry about making you leave Nunnally behind on her birthday. I hope you can forgive me."

Lelouch's face contorted into a sneer. "Save your pity for someone who needs it, and save your apologies for someone gullible enough to believe them," he spat, and before his sire could respond, he terminated the communication. _Who does that man think he is, anyway?! _He entered in a few more commands, ejected his flash drive and then secreted it back into his inner lapel pocket as he walked out of the command center and climbed into the Gawain's cockpit. The Knightmare straightened as he inserted his key and entered his passcode, then activated his private radio. "Zero Squad! By his majesty, Charles zi Britannia's order, we are to withdraw. Disengage and regroup at once!"

"Yes, your highness!" came the unanimous response.

* * *

"How fortunate for you," said the Knight of Seven as his Sutherland withdrew. "My lord has ordered me back. Your lives have been spared this day, but mark my words, rebels against the might of the Holy Britannian Empire! We shall meet again! So says Lord Jeremiah Gottwald!"

_Some withdrawal, _thought Suzaku, blinking blood out of his eye from where it had been coming in rivulets down the side of his face. _The Four Holy Swords dead, and General Tōdō severely injured, all for the sake of this piece of junk Knightmare Frame! _He beat his fist against the side of the cockpit in frustration. _No, I have to do my duty and see the rest of us to Japan. _With that in mind, he picked up Tōdō's ejected cockpit as carefully as he could with the single arm that still worked, and limped back across the Japanese border, injured and humiliated.

In the background, he heard a rumbling sound, so he turned about and watched helplessly as the mountain base of the JLF exploded, sending rubble and debris high into the air. It was a horrifying sight to behold. _This is it, isn't it? _he asked himself. _The might of Britannia–no, the might of the Black Prince. How can I–how can _anyone_ hope to stand against such a force?!_

* * *

Prince Clovis la Britannia, Third Prince of the Empire, Viceroy of Area Eleven, lived a life of lavish decadence and opulence; his only concerns, really, were how to keep the sakuradite flowing, and how to continue to see to his own comforts. Far too often, these goals seemed at odds with each other, and at those times, he envied his older brother, Schneizel, or his younger brother, Lelouch, for their successes upon battlefields military, diplomatic and political, but at those times, he also contented himself with the knowledge that with the single highest producer of sakuradite in the world under his direct control, he _was _the engine of Britannian conquest, and so did his own small part in helping Britannia achieve its rightful dominion over the world. And so when this little world of his was disrupted in any way, to say he was displeased would be an understatement; regardless, he also loved several members of his family, and visits from them were also pleasing. So when these two converged, he was understandably quite confused on how to feel about the whole matter–_'ambivalent', I think, might be the word…_

Thus, though he thoroughly wished otherwise, he was very much ambivalent on the subject of his brother Lelouch's visit to Area Eleven.

"Presenting His Imperial Highness, Lelouch vi Britannia, Fourth Prince of the Empire!" announced his knight, Kewell Soresi. "And presenting Margrave Jeremiah Gottwald, the Knight of Seven!"

"That will be all, Lord Kewell," pronounced Jeremiah as he entered the room, flanking Lelouch, who was wearing his command uniform. "Marika sends her regards."

Kewell looked to Prince Clovis in confusion, but when his lord gave no words of argument, he deflated, bowed and exited, the guards in the room leaving with him.

"Lelouch! What an unexpected surprise!" cried Clovis once they were away from all prying eyes and ears. "Will you require…"

"You can skip the pleasantries, Clovis," his younger brother snapped, removing his mask from his face. "Oh, and I apologize for Narita; it was housing elements of the Japanese military who wished to use Area Eleven's sakuradite to produce a stolen Knightmare. But all I require is a status update: how fares Code R?"

Clovis deflated himself, and chuckled ruefully. "Always so businesslike, aren't we, Lelouch? Nunnally is lucky to have such a devoted older brother." He sighed as Lelouch's expression hardened; he had forgotten how much his brother loathed being given the runaround. "Code R is progressing on schedule. We have collected all the data we need from the immortal girl who calls herself 'C.C.' for what you desire out of it. Of course, I would rather we proceed and attempt to replicate such a power, but…"

"No," Lelouch commanded. "If we have the data, then I wish it. Any more than that would be cruelty without meaning–wasteful. At least in this testing environment."

The Third Prince straightened in his seat; this was getting intriguing. "Oh?"

"I propose that you release her, and let it be known to her that it is by my order that this has been done. She has no idea of my involvement to-date, and so this will give us a convenient leash, or, failing that, a good contingency; once she is out, keep tabs on her, and see if she does anything. Remember, we know only that she is immortal. We have no knowledge of who she is or what manner of being she is in truth, what purpose she serves. Releasing her and then monitoring her from afar accomplishes both these tasks."

"Marvelous! Efficient as ever, Lelouch!" proclaimed Clovis.

He smirked. "Would you expect anything less from the one they call the Black Prince?"

"No, I suppose not, at that," considered the viceroy. "Please tell Kewell to go get General Bartley; he holds the data." Lelouch nodded to Jeremiah over his shoulder, and he moved to do just that.

Minutes later, the rotund ex-civil servant rushed into the chamber, his face flushed as he attempted to retain a semblance of composure. "Prince Lelouch," greeted Bartley, procuring a flash drive from his inner lapel pocket and tossing it to the imperial heir in question. "I think that you might be interested in this."

Lelouch snatched it from the air and scrutinized it before turning back to Clovis. "If I learn that you merely tricked me, I tell_ everyone_ about what you've been doing, and if Nunnally gets _hurt _because you tricked me, there will be no force on Heaven or on Earth who will be able to save you. Understood?"

"Of course," replied Clovis, his face a bit ashen from the threat but otherwise unaffected; a good sign of the veracity of the data the Fourth Prince now held in the palm of his hand.

"I thank you, Clovis," said Lelouch. "Truly."

* * *

"Well, your highness, I would have much preferred to gather piloting data from the Lancelot's perspective, but at this point, with the amount of accuracy with which these readings have been recorded, it would seem like that's just me quibbling over minutiae," remarked Lloyd as he looked over the results of the Gawain's Druid System scanning the unrecovered prototype. "This is, in a word, excellent; with this and the original plans for the Lancelot, I could…"

"Let me guess, 'build another Lancelot?'" ventured Lelouch.

Lloyd held a hand to his heart, as if scandalized. "Your highness, you might as well be asking if Michelangelo meant to paint another Sistine Chapel, Da Vinci to reproduce 'The Last Supper'–_me_ to replicate _your _Gawain! I would not brutalize the memory of the Lancelot with a cheap reproduction! No! I shall continue to explore, to _improve!_"

"I'm sorry, Lloyd; I had no intentions of questioning your pride as an artist," apologized the prince, holding up his hands in a gesture that matched his words.

"Oh, perish the thought, your highness; do you think I have gotten this far with _pride _weighing me down?" replied the eccentric scientist. "No, I simply meant to instruct you on the subject of the error inherent in your assumption."

"Regardless, would _this_ make it up to you?" Lelouch held the flash drive that contained Bartley's data in front of him. "For my most grievous error just now."

The scientist's eyes went wide as he processed the prospect of yet more data. "More than that, your highness," he responded half-jokingly. "I take it this is the data that pertains to the sensitive matter we discussed some months ago?"

"Yes, it does," confirmed Lelouch. "I'm giving this to you, Lloyd, because you're the only one capable in this area that I trust implicitly."

"I understand, your highness," acknowledged the earl. "Rest assured, I will not fail you."

"You have my eternal thanks, Lloyd Asplund. With any luck, and this data from Code R…"

"…Princess Nunnally will be able to both walk and see once more, yes."

* * *

_Author's Note: _So, this concludes the second chapter of "The Black Prince." To clarify, the war with Japan ended with a peace treaty, negotiated between the Emperor and Prime Minister Kururugi, which allowed for Japan to remain in control of the northern "half" of its territory. The only reason Genbu went for a "do or die" resistance in the original series is because Lelouch and Nunnally had been given to him as hostages, and the fact that Britannia attacked anyways convinced the Prime Minister that the Britannian Emperor could not be trusted. Since Genbu did not have this reason not to trust the Empire this time through, he brokered a peace between his country and Britannia; thus, Suzaku did not feel the need to kill his father, and did not then develop his absurd, irrational (but very logical, if you think about it) idea of changing Britannia from within. Suzaku this time through is the son of the Prime Minister, and as loyal a soldier of Japan as he was of Britannia in the original series. I explain this because I cannot think of a legitimate reason for this to come up in the story at any point, given the way it's set up, and I'd rather not shoehorn it in and run the near-inevitability that it will sound forced. And yes, you _did _just see Lelouch collaborating with Clovis on Code R for the sake of restoring his sister's sight and mobility–he's the world's greatest siscon for a reason, after all. Questions, comments or concerns? Please leave a review.


	3. Chapter 3: The Demon of Orleans

_July 14, a.t.b. 2014_

The G-1 mobile command center was rather more sumptuous in its design than Lelouch was used to seeing, when his sister Cornelia took him along for the infrequent parades in Pendragon, but then again, this was to be expected; Schneizel was the prime minister first and foremost, not the chief general, and that was before one considered their very different tastes. Still, this mattered little to Lelouch as he ran through its corridors as his brother had suggested–usually it was his habit to suppress the surges of impulsiveness that might well get him killed, but seeing that young, black-haired Britannian girl so helpless against the approaching line of E.U. Panzer-Hummels was too much for him. And so here he was, running towards the vehicle's Knightmare stables, hoping against hope that there was _something _that would give him the power to save her. When he burst through, there was only one unit left that was in serviceable condition–a Glasgow, obsolete compared to the fifth-generation E.U. Frames. _Still, I have to try!_ Lelouch thought.

He got into the open Knightmare, inserted himself, and plugged his master key into the port on the dashboard. The mech came to life in his hands, startling him, but he calmed himself down ruthlessly, focusing on the rhythm of inhaling and exhaling. "Calm down, Lelouch," he muttered to himself. "Remember what Guilford said–don't strangle the control yokes. The goal is to work _with _the Knightmare, not against it…" He closed his eyes, unraveled his grip on the yokes, then tightened it again, though this time, it was more relaxed. His eyes snapped open, and he launched the Knightmare Frame onto the battlefield.

He hit the ground running, scything his landspinners through the dirt like roller blades when he found them not fast enough for what he intended, his Factspheres open. Soon enough, he came upon the road, the asphalt and concrete of which it was constructed having been ripped apart by long-range artillery and the firing of the armor-piercing rounds the Panzer-Hummels used. He was moving even faster now, and everything else seemed like it was moving in slow motion; Guilford had cautioned him about the dangers of moving across an urban battlefield, citing the difficulties in terrain, but he honestly had no idea what Cornelia's knight was on about. _Piloting for real is certainly different than piloting in a simulator!_ Lelouch thought with youthful exuberance. _This is exhilarating!_

Lelouch shot past the battle lines of the brand-new Sutherlands taking cover from the E.U. forces' barrage and bombardment, heading straight for the line of Panzer-Hummels. _I've got to close the distance before I can rescue this girl, _he thought to himself. _Otherwise, their anti-Knightmare rifles will rip me apart, and then it'll all have been for nothing! _Seeing an opening, he shot up a makeshift ramp at high speed and into the sky; counting on the sun blinding his opponents, he descended with it at his back right on top of one of their Frames, then unloaded his automatic rifle into its cockpit from above, destroying it. He used this explosion to propel him into a backflip, and then as he landed, he fired his Slash Harkens, destroying two more of them. Knowing he had not the time to allow for them to return to him, he chose the benefit of victory over the cost of overtaxing the servomotors and having them jam. He shot forth once more towards their line, drawing the fire of one of the Panzer-Hummels; he turned and drifted the Knightmare, not counting on the brakes, causing the shot to miss him and destroy the Panzer-Hummel behind him. He fired his rifle as he slid past, destroying the one he had caused to kill its comrade with a sense of achievement and the thrilling feeling of adrenaline pumping through his fourteen-year-old body. _That's five! I'm an ace! _thought Lelouch. He grinned wolfishly. "Now, let's see how many more I can do!"

He finally slid to a stop near an ammunitions pile, picking up a spare E.U. anti-Knightmare rifle, which was strangely enough compatible with his Glasgow's hands, and started forth again; the other Panzer-Hummels turned and fired on him until they discovered that this allowed the Sutherland line to advance, and found themselves unable to commit their full strength to neutralizing this threat, but he leapt his Knightmare into the air and flipped forwards, firing his Britannian rifle down while he fired his E.U. rifle at what was in front of him, in mid-arc and thus upside-down as he was, destroying both his targets. "Six! Seven!" He landed and spread his Glasgow's arms in either direction, firing freely. "Eight! Nine! Ten! Eleven! Twelve!" he laughed, moving on as the Panzer-Hummels fired on his position to backflip up and grapple onto a building with one of his Slash Harkens. After a bit, he suspended his servomotor's retraction, swinging down and around the building and sending him shooting at the Hummels as they tried to both get out of the way and stand their ground against the Britannians they were suppressing. He fired at them destroying another one before finding out that his Britannian-made rifle was out of ammunition; thankfully, his jump planted the feet of his Glasgow nimbly into the face of another Panzer-Hummel, crushing it under the force of momentum. "Thirteen! Fourteen!" He laughed maniacally, and it broadcasted out of his Knightmare. _I do suspect I may be enjoying myself out here, _he thought. "I don't need _this _anymore, so I'll just take yours!" he cried, discarding the empty gun and ripping another anti-Knightmare rifle off of the Panzer-Hummel he had just neutralized.

He leapt up and backflipped again, firing both at once at retreating Panzer-Hummels, destroying them. "Fifteen! Sixteen!" He fired a Slash Harken through another to his front and left to his true target–the building behind it. "Seventeen!" He retracted the servomotor, pulling himself to the building and firing down their little trench. "Eighteen! Nineteen!" Rolling over in midair, he fired in the other direction. "Twenty! Twenty-one!" This put him in the correct posture to fire another Slash Harken up to the top of the building before the other one had even finished retracting, and he was pulled up it as the other one dislodged from the building and returned to him; seeing an opportunity, he whipped out that Slash Harken and destroyed four more advancing Panzer-Himmels–reinforcements, most likely. "And that's twenty-five!" he cried, laughing uproariously and maniacally. "Thanks for playing! Now, to rescue that girl…"

* * *

_November 30, a.t.b. 2017_

Lelouch had first competed in the Pendragon Imperial Tourney the autumn after his debut as a Knightmare jockey on the front against the European Union, in the engagement that had given him his second moniker. Every year since then, he had competed in the prestigious competition between the strongest knights in the realm, and had been the champion for three years running–but this year, he was looking forward to it, for it was to be the debut of his knight's new abilities, a political move meant to be a display of the power he had at his command, which was the _real _reason he time and time again entered the competition, and because it was to be the debut of the new advanced generation Knightmare Frames that Lloyd had developed for the Knights of the Round–or at least, a few of them; this year, the Knight of Three, Lord Gino Weinberg, the Knight of Six, Lady Anya Alstreim, the Knight of Seven, Lord Jeremiah Gottwald, and the Knight of Eleven, Lady Kallen Stadtfeld, were entered into the contest to find out who amongst the contestants was the greatest Knightmare pilot, and each of them was piloting their new custom Camelot-designed and manufactured Frames. Lelouch was not entering this year, of course; it would be in poor form to force Jeremiah to fight him, after all, and besides, this was one of the times when a show of strength was required, not of him, but of those whose loyalty he commanded.

_Jeremiah's conversion seems to have been a success,_ thought Lelouch as he took his little sister up to the private box from which they would watch the proceedings taking place below, in the arena. _And Lloyd said that they're a few weeks away from making one hundred percent certain that the neurological regenerative procedure is safe for Nunnally. Clovis did exactly as he promised, but these new reports on the nature of this new element, "Geass," are troubling to say the least. I wonder if _that man _knows about its existence, and if so, for how long has he known? And if he has this unknown ability under his control, is anyone safe? Or rather, is Nunnally? What good is all the power and influence I have accumulated if I can't keep my own sister safe from harm?_

"Lelouch?" Nunnally called worriedly, placing her hand upon his; he stopped himself from recoiling with a moment to spare as he came out of his reverie. "Are you alright? Is something wrong?"

"No, Nunnally, nothing's wrong," replied Lelouch. _Stop that, you idiot. It's bad enough I missed Nunnally's birthday; I won't make her worry on the outing I'm taking her on to make that up, _he berated himself, affecting an aura of calm cheer. "Don't worry. Let's just sit and enjoy the tourney–together."

Nunnally nodded hesitantly, but her brow remained furrowed, which twisted her older brother's stomach into seemingly as many knots as there were stars in the sky. _Damn it. I did it again. I'm a terrible brother. _Lelouch rolled her wheelchair out of the heated elevator and into the chamber from which they would watch the tourney, and he noted the sight with a hint of distant wonder; he had not been here, to watch this event from this perspective, since he had returned from Orléans, having only been in Camelot Knightmare trailer. The event was as much about politics and business tactics as it was about the competition itself; the winning Knightmare would often net its company a formidable subsidy from the Crown to produce Knightmare Frames for the expansion of the Empire's might. In Camelot's case, it had been one of the major factors that allowed the Ashford Consortium to get back on its feet, and, with Lelouch's piloting and Milly's guidance, the corporation had swelled to an industrial behemoth several times the size it had been in the days of Marianne 'the Flash'.

Lelouch lifted Nunnally up and out of her wheelchair, setting her into a more comfortable sofa, and then sat himself down next to her, his arm around her to keep her stable and upright, and to keep her from falling forwards. At this, a pleased smile unlike the one she usually wore ghosted across her face, which made Lelouch feel quite confused, but it left her countenance as his confusion made itself manifest. Unable to shake the feeling that he had just done something wrong, he steadfastly stayed away from his darker thoughts and turned his attention towards the tourney, reminding himself of his resolution to not trouble his very perceptive sister with his own petty worries–he would not be so selfish as that.

"Well, well, what have we here?" asked a familiar voice from the elevator.

"When I heard that you hadn't joined the tourney, Lelouch, I scarcely believed it," began the voice of Cornelia li Britannia. "And yet here you are."

"Cornelia. Guilford. It's good to see you both," said Lelouch as he got up, maneuvering so that his arm was still around his little sister's waist to keep her from falling, and faced the visitors. "You, too, Dalton. Since you're all here, I take it that someone has been selected to be the viceroy of Area Eighteen?"

"You would be correct in that, Lelouch," replied Cornelia, walking forth and putting her hand on her hip as she looked out at the lists, allowing her younger brother to resume his former position at Nunnally's side. "The decision was made to give Area Eighteen to Duke Calares just last week; he arrived two nights ago with his own forces, and so I was able to move the rest of mine out, and with them, return here, to the Homeland." She chuckled. "But it's too bad; I really was looking forward to seeing my younger brother joust in person."

Lelouch smiled–a serpent's smile. "Perhaps another time, dear sister; this year, though, you will get to bear witness to Camelot's wonders, and maybe negotiate a contract for your own forces to be upgraded. It's a new generation of Knightmares we're unveiling today," he said. "I hope–_we _hope–that what you see today will please you enough to make that commitment."

Dalton chuckled, coming up to stand on the side of the sofa closest to Lelouch and opposite Cornelia. "What, is Lady Ashford's group not content with supplying Frames to the Black Knights? Perhaps she's getting greedy," he remarked. He jerked his head to the armchair on his other side, and at a nod from Lelouch, he sat gratefully. "Thank you, your highness."

"Anything for my old tutor; think nothing of it," the prince replied. "As for Milly, I wouldn't say 'greedy' as readily as I would say 'ambitious.' She's rather eager to secure new clients for her family's company and thereby secure their fortunes–understandable, given its near-collapse eight years ago, after the death of Empress Marianne. The girl's got a good head on her shoulders; beyond that, I'm sure she wants to channel Lloyd's brilliance into new projects. For someone as practical as her, the idea of letting such a talented specialist go to waste must truly be abhorrent."

"'Practical'? I must confess, I've heard many things about Lady Ashford, but her being practical is not one of them," said Guilford, standing behind the armchair that Cornelia moved to sit in, next to the sofa.

"Well, perhaps not in the circles _you _occupy your spare time with, Guilford," countered Lelouch, taking a jab at Guilford's non-existent reputation as a playboy–an old in-joke between the three of them. "But mark my words: she's cunning as a fox, and quite a bit more dangerous if you get on your bad side. There's a reason why they only speak ill of her in the most private of boardrooms; make no mistake, Lord Guilford–Milly Ashford is one of the most capable and formidable women I've ever known." He looked towards Cornelia. "And given the women I know, that is no mean feat."

"Indeed," agreed Guilford, a note of awe in his tone. "So, where's your knight?"

"Jeremiah is competing," replied Lelouch.

"Not the Knight of Seven; the other one, Lady Stadtfeld," said Guilford.

"She is, too. Her new Knightmare Frame is one of our showpieces for today," the prince responded. "In fact, she's in the Third Tilt, going up against Clovis's knight, Lord Kewell."

"Ah, I see," he nodded. "And I understand you kept her here during our push to claim the Middle Eastern Federation."

"Only very rarely do I need two knights to defend myself, Guilford," said Lelouch. "I'm hardly an invalid in a Knightmare Frame, as you well know."

"But still…"

"And really, wouldn't her talents be much better utilized guarding my sister, here, as opposed to being by my side when she isn't needed?" interrupted the prince, indicating Nunnally with a gesture of his head. "I had her posted to Aries Villa, and notified her when I was coming back so that she knew to take over the supervision of the Black Knights' return home. Rest assured, I make good use of her; Jeremiah and she actually have a rotating schedule for such duties, and we've had this in place for some time. It's only that it is just now that Schneizel has bothered to see us transferred to Cornelia's command; quite often while we were fighting in the E.U. did we make use of it. It's just more efficient."

"Very well; I see your point."

"And besides, both my knights are on the premises, are they not?" continued Lelouch. "If we were attacked on such a scale that I alone could not deal with the issue, they would be able to respond. Rest assured, I make a point of taking no unnecessary risks with regards to personal security when Nunnally's involved."

Out of the corner of her eye, Cornelia spied the elated smile on her younger sister's face, which Lelouch missed, and made note of it. Dalton saw this, and got the distinct feeling of being a fifth wheel, but shook it off without comment; these were his friends and former students, after all, and there was no reason why he should feel or submit to such a sensation of discomfort. He turned his attention to the tourney, and moments later, the others followed suit as the Twenty-Fifth Annual Pendragon Imperial Tourney began.

The tourney was organized in a series of match-ups, called 'tilts', which were nominally paired with ordinal descriptors–ultimately, there would be twelve, to match the number of members in the Knights of the Round. The First and Second Tilts were between minor nobles and their comparatively small corporations, their so-called 'prototypes' at best only minutely improved Sutherlands or Gloucesters, and at worst, aesthetically customized versions of those Frames; Lelouch was convinced that one even had integrated parts from a Glasgow in its design. The four of them that were capable of watching did so, and Lelouch described in great, practiced detail every move that each Frame made; and as they watched, their discussions capitulated into a rather scathing scrutiny of the specifications of the machines in play. When the Third Tilt came about, Lord Kewell came out in a high-performance, Float System-equipped Sutherland that drew some commentary from the crowds, though the royals in the Ashford Consortium's box remained largely unmoved, knowing, to various extents, what was up next–Lelouch refused to divulge what he knew and spoil the fun of the reveal, even to Nunnally; her pouting act moved the needle not one whit for him, which spiked their anticipation. What followed, however, surpassed their expectations.

Lady Kallen Stadtfeld, the Knight of Eleven, Lelouch's second personal knight and former heir to the since-defunct Stadtfeld Consortium (which had, three and a half years prior, merged with the struggling but once more up-and-coming Ashford Foundation), came out in her new, prototype Knightmare Frame, taking to the skies immediately as Kewell did the same; as soon as the tilt began, it shot forth across the arena, in the process becoming little more than a crimson blur, and took the Sutherland by the chest, then powered up its specialized arm weapon, destroying it instantaneously and forcing Lord Kewell to eject in seconds. Guilford staggered back, Cornelia stared, floored, their mouths agape, and even Dalton shot to his feet, wide-eyed; Lelouch only laughed, and he laughed hard.

"Wha…what _is _that thing?" asked Cornelia, the first to break the almost-absolute silence of the room but for Lelouch's maniacal laughter.

"_That _is the Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. Eight Elements," said Lelouch, almost immediately regaining his composure. "The first of the next-generation Knightmare Frames I spoke of just recently–specifically, ninth generation. It comes equipped with Doctor Chawla's Radiant Wave System, which began with the Radiant Wave Surger, which Lloyd expanded upon to include shielding and long-range capabilities that were not present in the original, an enhanced Yggdrasil Drive, and the brand-new 'Energy Wing System.' All of this was, of course, manufactured by the Ashford Consortium, also known as Camelot."

"It's certainly impressive," remarked Dalton. "But you've set the bar fairly high."

"You let _me _worry about topping the Guren," Lelouch replied. "Just sit back and enjoy the show."

The Fourth Tilt featured Luciano Bradley against a Gloucester pilot who was, in short order, annihilated; but it was altogether unremarkable compared to the show that was the Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. Eight Elements. The Fifth, between Anya Alstreim and an actually decently-constructed variant of the Lancelot, was, similar to the other battles featuring a Camelot-manufactured prototype Frame, a very one-sided battle; Spacer Enterprises' seventh-generation Frame, Kay, was no match for the Mordred's Stark Hadron Cannon. The Sixth Tilt featured a battle between a seventh-generation Frame, the Galehault, and Gino Weinberg's Tristan Divider, and, much like Anya's tilt, was little more than a show of the overall quality of Camelot-manufactured Knightmare Frames. However, the rest of the tourney was more or less a one-sided domination by a single unit: the Sutherland Siegfried Knight Giga Fortress.

"How can that thing _move _like that?!" cried Cornelia, standing up from her seat as Jeremiah stepped forth from its cockpit to claim his title as the victor of the tourney. "And where did you get the _technology _for such a fiendish undertaking?!"

"From Clovis," revealed Lelouch brusquely. "The Sutherland Siegfried was adapted from Clovis's design for a new type of Knightmare Frame–the Knight Giga Fortress–which he developed with Bartley's help. Lloyd took it and combined it with elements of the operating system of a Sutherland, Jeremiah's preferred type of Knightmare Frame, and the implants he received following injuries sustained during a test run of some of this new software. All these elements were integrated and refined with Lloyd's personal touch to create this 'fiendish undertaking,' as you so aptly put it; Lloyd designed all three of the Knightmares you've seen today simultaneously. I'm at a loss as to how the man finds time to _sleep._"

"Well, then," said Cornelia, bemused, as she sat back down limply. "Is he working on anything now?"

"Two: the Vincent, and one that I do not wish to disclose. The Vincent is an eighth-generation mass-production type of the stolen Lancelot, the test unit for which should be finished before the end of the week," replied the prince. "You're welcome to attend a demonstration of its abilities, if you wish."

Cornelia nodded absently. "I think I shall. And if Earl Asplund keeps consistent with his normal standard of quality, then I think I might well begin furnishing my forces with Vincents. I used to think that Gloucesters and Sutherlands were enough, but it would be foolish to not get my hands on this cutting-edge hardware."

Lelouch smiled. "I'm sure Milly will be glad to hear it."

* * *

_December 6, a.t.b. 2017_

"How are you doing, Lloyd?" asked Lelouch as he stepped into the blue-haired scientist's lab.

"_Marvelously, _your highness!" cried Lloyd, doing a pirouette. "After that tourney, I've been _mobbed _with commissions–for the Knight of Ten, the Knight of Eight, the Knight of Four, and even Lord Waldstein, the Knight of One himself! Oh, it's been a happy, _happy_ week! How very apropos that Christmas is just on the horizon, isn't it! I could just work myself to the _bone!_"

"And what of my personal projects?"

"Well, the Vincent's ready for tomorrow's demonstration before Princess Cornelia, your highness," Lloyd replied. "The medical staff are finishing up their testing and data analysis–you'll be able to give Princess Nunnally her legs back as a Christmas present. How marvelous would that be?"

"Excellent," Lelouch responded. "And what about Project Shadow?"

"Should be ready come the new year," assured the scientist. "And you'll be happy to know that Nina's team has completed the construction of the Avalon–the world's first aerial battleship is now _officially _operational. She wished for me to tell you."

"Oh, Nina," sighed Lelouch. Ever since his stunt at Orléans, Nina Einstein had apparently harbored something of a crush on him, and though she was brilliant and great conversation, she could sometimes get to be a bit much. Still, she was his friend, and beyond that, a Camelot scientist, and as such, in his (somewhat) direct employ. "Thankfully, with the advent of aerial battleships, we'll finally be able to scrap those blasted VTOLs. And what of the F.L.E.I.J.A.?"

"She's scheduled its first operational test for February–Valentine's Day, in fact." He chuckled. "She has a bit of a flair for the dramatic, doesn't she, our Professor Einstein?"

Lelouch chuckled, shaking his head ruefully. "That she does–that she most certainly does. Rakshata used to keep her on a leash, but now with her gone… Still, Nina remains a valuable, nigh-indispensable part of our team here. I'm still glad to have her as an asset."

Lloyd laughed himself. "I remember; Rakshata used to look after that girl, so that she wouldn't work herself down to the bone like I do. Now, I'm glad we don't share facilities; it would be a constant battle over who gets first claim on the sixteenth pot of coffee at three hundred hours. I swear, your highness, sometimes I feel as though I've unwittingly entered a competition to decide which of us is the bigger workaholic. It's rather distressing, when all's said and done."

"You have your talents and she has hers. That's all that matters," said the prince. "And remember, you're the department head for a reason. She may be brilliant, but Nina doesn't have your management skills or your ability to play nice with Milly. I'm certain that if I put _her _in charge, they'll be at each other's throats before the week is out."

"Well, gee, _thanks, _your highness," remarked Lloyd, a deadpan expression on his face as he turned back to what he was doing. "But don't worry, I know what you mean regardless."

"I should hope so," commented Lelouch. "I trust you, Lloyd. Don't let me down."

"Don't worry, your highness," replied Earl Asplund, his tone sincere. "I won't."

* * *

_Author's Note: _For those of you who were wondering, yes, that girl he saw on the battlefield and went out to retrieve was none other than Nina Einstein. And before you start calling me on how the Panzer-Himmels reacted–or rather, didn't react–I would have you recognize that Knightmare combat prior to the advent of the Lancelot in the original series more or less resembled modern warfare today, with Knightmare Frames getting into cover to avoid fire from other Knightmare Frames, advancing slowly and carefully, and all of that. So seeing Lelouch, with his seemingly reckless style of combat on the battlefield in the borrowed Glasgow was understandably quite surprising, and none of them knew how to react, and so they just defaulted to following orders, unable to grasp the concept of a single Knightmare pilot proving to be so volatile in combat. It would be like if Hei from _Darker Than Black_ spontaneously appeared on the battlefields of Afghanistan, with all his gymnastics and acrobatics in combat. As to how Lelouch got to be this good when he never showed such skill in the show, consider for a moment that Lelouch had had no instruction whatsoever in how to pilot a Knightmare in the original series; he more or less taught himself to operate the Ganymede, which is a pretty bare-bones Knightmare Frame even when compared to the next generation, being bereft of even a single Slash Harken, and then used his skills he had accumulated over piloting the Ganymede to make a _pizza _anywhere between five to seven times to operate a Sutherland, then a Burai, and then the Gawain itself, not to mention the Shinkirō. Lelouch is _good; _like, Char Aznable the original series, he had more raw potential than any other pilot on the field, who had all had something in the realm of formal training. Even in Kallen's case, she had been taught by someone who knew what they were doing–possibly Naoto; a benefit of which Lelouch was conspicuously bereft. This time, he's got Guilford, and even though he had had a few pointers and very little else this time, too, and no combat experience, I'm translating the raw potential from Lelouch in the original series to the Lelouch here, who is all but unchanged from his original version; thus, his skill in Knightmare combat would rationally be substantially greater for it. Hence, the Battle of Orléans.


	4. Chapter 4: When the Red Lotus Blooms

_December 7, a.t.b. 2017_

"Oh, your highness, so glad you could make it," greeted Lloyd as Cornelia, Guilford and Dalton marched into the observation room, overlooking the demonstration lists below, escorted by both Lelouch and Milly. "The Vincent will be ready for mass-production upon your order."

"You're that confident that we'll approve of it?" asked Cornelia. "You seem awfully proud of your work."

Lloyd smiled enigmatically. "Oh, your highness, I'm _always _proud of my work. None of it would reach the prototype stage if I wasn't. It's a metric I employ to make sure I waste none of Lady Ashford's funds on projects that turn no profit or results. Now," he said, extending his arm towards the viewport invitingly. "Shall we begin?"

Cornelia nodded. "Show us what Camelot's latest creation can do."

Lloyd nodded. "Down there in the lists–the devicer is our test pilot, Alan Spencer. In this test, we will demonstrate the Vincent's combat superiority when compared to a fifth-generation Sutherland or Gloucester Knightmare Frame." The Vincent came online, and its pilot pulled forth its two MVSs, crossing them in front of him and then advancing against the squadron of six armed Sutherlands that came out against the mass-production prototype. It struck out with its MVSs as its landspinners brought it into the midst of the rifle-firing Knightmares, destroying two Sutherlands straight off, then it retreated, firing its Slash Harkens whilst still dodging rifle fire, eliminating the four others. This was followed by four lance-armed Gloucesters, which charged on it, but it brought its MVSs together, combining them and then using the double-bladed MVS that was formed as a weapon to deflect and eliminate each one.

"You can stop it now and save yourselves materiel," asserted Cornelia. "I came to see if the Camelot standard of quality was universal; I have seen demonstrated to my satisfaction that it is this day, and so I will take them." She turned to Milly. "Lady Ashford, you have yourself a contract. Contact my offices when you're ready to move forward, and we'll go over the details." She then turned to her brother. "Our father might be loath to say this, but you've done well for yourself and Nunnally, Lelouch. In my eyes, at least, you are worthy of the throne you spoke of all those years ago, and capable of bearing the heavy burden it would place upon he who sits upon it and wears its mantle." She bowed and exited, her entourage following her out.

The room was speechless for a moment. "Well, _that _was much briefer than most of the demonstrations I'm used to giving," volunteered Lloyd. "Although, it sounds as though she only came today as a formality…"

"We must have made quite the impression during the tourney," mused Lelouch. "She must have come only to make sure that her faith in us was not misplaced. In any event, the Ashford Consortium just netted itself the biggest client in terms of military hardware there is in the marketplace of this day and age. Congratulations, Lady Ashford–you are now a bona fide Merchant of Death."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Lelouch," replied Milly blithely, her smile wry. "I'm sure Rivalz will have a heart attack when I tell him for whom we're drawing up a contract with us this time. Maybe this time I should try getting a female assistant. What do _you _think, _your highness?_"

"I think you're a bit too hasty to count Rivalz out, but beyond that, no comment," he responded. "It's none of my concern whether you get a female assistant or a male one. Although you might want to be prepared to defend against the sexual harassment claims if you go with the former; you're not famed for your restraint. And please don't call me 'your highness,' Milly."

"Hmm… I suppose you're right about that," she acknowledged. "Well, I'd best be getting to work–there's certainly a lot to see to. Also, Shirley asked me to give you her regards."

"Tell your secretary I said 'my condolences,'" he replied. "Because something tells me that you're going to end up splitting the prep work between her and Rivalz so that you don't have to do anything yourself."

"What can I say? I'm an executive of a large business empire," she answered playfully. "Someone in my position needs to know how to delegate, now don't they?"

Lelouch chuckled. "That they do, I suppose."

She smirked. "Well, I'll be seeing you, Lelouch." With that, she turned on her heel and left the demonstration box.

"So, we've seen two leadership styles–your sister, who takes care of everything herself, and Lady Ashford, who pushes hers off onto her unwitting subordinates," remarked Lloyd. "I wonder, your highness, which you prefer."

"The answer is not so simple as it might seem," responded Lelouch, his eyes on the door. "I know everyone under my command is working their hardest, and so it's my duty to take on as many things as I am capable of taking care of, but by the same token, I must ensure that there's something left of me for Nunnally. It's so rare that I get the opportunity to spend protracted lengths of time with my sister, and I'm loath to drop from exhaustion in the middle of one of them and have that on my conscience until next I see her. It's a delicate balance, but one I must find a way to strike consistently. But ultimately, I lead from the front; after all, if the king does not lead, how can he expect his subordinates to follow?"

"A good answer, your highness," said Lloyd. "And on the subject of Princess Nunnally, are you really ready to proceed with your sister's surgery? I mean, once she can walk again, she'll no longer be dependent upon you. There are some who, in your position, might feel as though without their loved one depending upon them, they'll lose them."

"If Nunnally no longer needs me, then so be it," replied Lelouch fervently, knowing that Lloyd was only posing a hypothetical. "But if she stays with me, then it must be by her choice, made freely and of her own will–else, it will mean nothing. I will not trap her in such a way…I will not keep her dependent upon me; it is unthinkable that I could be so selfish."

"Another good answer, your highness," said Lloyd, looking at him in an almost uncharacteristically critical fashion. "If you had given the wrong one, you know, I would have resigned right here and now. It is good, then, that your resolve is stronger than that."

"Yes, else I would have lost the head of Camelot–and Camelot is most certainly not a hydra, though it might seem like that at first glance," said Lelouch, unfazed by having been tested by his confidante–he made it clear that he relied upon his friends to do that for him when he could not himself. "But nonetheless, with whatever I do, Lloyd, Nunnally _always _comes first."

"I've noticed," he said in return. "It warms the heart."

* * *

_November 30, a.t.b. 2014_

Lelouch knew well the dangers the Imperial Court posed to one of his stature, but he cared not; with his knight, ever-loyal Sir Jeremiah Gottwald by his side, he had nothing to fear from those who remained in the running for the Imperial Throne. Even Princess Guinevere feared his increasing influence amongst the ranks of the military, and with Army Group vi Britannia nearly ready for its first field deployment against the E.U., that already-considerable sphere of influence was only going to increase. Not that he needed it, of course; he had more than enough resources to keep Nunnally safe from any overly-ambitious family members while he was here with the threat of untold retribution, but it was necessary for him to prove his worth in the eyes of their sire. He was, from a political standpoint, virtually untouchable.

Lady Kallen Stadtfeld, who was on debut, was not so lucky.

It was the Twenty-Second Pendragon Imperial Tourney, and she was his last opponent, his challenger in the Twelfth Tilt. In a Stadtfeld-designed Manchester Knightmare Frame, which was not at all unlike a Japanese Burai Frame, which had seen use during the latter portions of the Britannian-Japanese War, it itself little more than a redesigned Glasgow (though this one was obviously derived from Sutherland components). Lelouch himself was on the other side of the lists from her, his black-and-gold painted Sutherland equipped with a lance, while hers had a Knightmare-sized combat knife held in a reverse-grip in what he assumed was her dominant hand, ready and waiting for him.

"Let the Twelfth Tilt begin!" cried the herald from the Imperial Box.

They charged at each other simultaneously. He thrust with his lance, and she showed only her profile to dodge. She tried for his Knightmare's hands, and he twirled the lance around him, bringing it up in a defensive position. When he caught the knife on the shaft, he spun it again, forcing her grip wide as he brought the lance up and over, striking with an upwards-and-forwards thrust from below. She ducked her Knightmare back, barely avoiding, placing her free hand on the ground and performing a backflip, then dancing away with her landspinners. He charged, following her and keeping her on the defensive, but she eventually caught his lance with both her hand and the blade of her knife, then kicked at him in this position, catching him in the abdomen and sending him flying back, though his grip on the lance remained stable, and the weapon remained well in hand. She followed him, but he batted her blade aside and responded with a quick flurry of blows with his lance, keeping her wheeling back. _She's a close-range fighter, _thought Lelouch. _If I can keep her out of her effective combat range, I'll be fine. If she closes like she did back there, I may be in trouble. Thankfully, I have the advantage in both reach and flexibility here–though she seems to be none too bad herself. Perhaps even at the level of a Knight of the Round in terms of raw potential._

She fired off her Slash Harkens at him, first one, then the other, to try and dissuade him from pursuing his course of action, but his lance blows deflected both blades, causing them to fly off wildly and tear up the ground of the lists before returning to their rightful place in the chest of her Knightmare. This threw her off-balance, and Lelouch closed in for the kill, charging and thrusting his lance, though she managed to get enough of a handle upon her Manchester to avoid the thrust and try to stab him in the Factsphere, but after his thrust, he beat a hasty retreat, having predicted that to be the next move in her combat pattern. _Parry, then riposte,_ he thought. _A basic principle of fencing. Glad to know she knows of it. And she avoided my thrust. Such talent cannot be allowed to go to waste… But first, I must finish this._

With that, he watched as she tried to close again, obviously ready to dodge whatever he was to throw at her; he fired his Slash Harkens, one of which she avoided, and the other she batted aside, closing with renewed confidence. But at that moment, she caught his lance in her Knightmare's chest, just barely missing the cockpit–Lelouch had cast it at her like a javelin, having predicted where she would dodge to. The match was over, and the Black Prince was the one who stood victorious.

The two opened their hatch and came out of their Knightmares, standing–her somewhat awkwardly due to the construction of her cockpit–and bowing to each other respectfully, but at that moment, the crowd began to give their verdict.

It was, in Lelouch's view, disgraceful.

"Get out of here, half-Britannian wench!" called one particularly loud spectator. Lady Stadtfeld shrunk from this, but the prince turned to the crowd and spoke.

"And why is it a crime to have impure blood?!" challenged Lelouch. "The credo of nature, which is the dominion by which we Britannians claim our superiority, is 'adapt or die'; without new blood, there is nothing but stagnation! And to those who cry out about purity, I know in my heart that Britannian blood, being superior, must necessarily override the other elements within which it finds itself; if, by the decree of nature, Britannians are superior, then mustn't it be the case that there _are _no such things as impure Britannians?! Lady Stadtfeld is half Japanese, a nation with a rich history and culture, as well as strength enough to challenge us! Let her add the strengths of Japanese blood to the superiority of Britannian blood! And in this way, I declare her to be my second knight! Let all know she is under my protection!"

The look of surprise on her face let Lelouch know that he was doing the right thing.

* * *

_December 1, a.t.b. 2014_

"Presenting Lady Kallen Stadtfeld," announced Jeremiah, showing the pilot of the Manchester, winner of second place in the tourney, into the Aries Villa's solar, within which Lelouch was keeping Nunnally company.

"Good morning, your highnesses," said Kallen respectfully, albeit curtly, bowing in the same fashion. "I hope I'm not disturbing anything."

"No, you're not," replied Lelouch, waving his hand dismissively. "You seem to have something on your mind, Lady Stadtfeld. I would be interested in hearing of it."

"Respectfully, your highness, I wish to know why I was selected to be your second knight," she said.

"An excellent question," said Lelouch. "And one that perhaps deserves an answer. I have my own reasons, of course, but let's hear yours first; why do _you _think I selected you to be my second knight? I give you leave to speak freely."

"In all honesty, your highness? Pity," she spat. "Pity and some perverse desire for self-aggrandizement. And if that's the case, I don't want or need your pity, nor will I be some doll for you to primp yourself on having rescued."

Both Jeremiah and Nunnally seemed ready to leap to Lelouch's defense, and see Lady Stadtfeld out of the Villa, but Lelouch cut them both off. "I see. It's the answer I was expecting–lucky for you, it's also incorrect. I 'rescued' you, as you put it, for a very different reason. So now, you have a choice: you can either, one, stay and hear the _actual _reason, or two, keep with your false presumptions and storm out of here, facing the world on your own."

She hesitated, before nodding, and saying, in a much smaller voice, "The former."

"Well, then," said Lelouch, with his hand indicating a wicker chair opposite the sofa he and his sister were occupying. She took it, sitting down and listening to him speak. "The reason I stuck my neck out for you out there was because I could see your talent, your potential. I have every reason to hate the Holy Britannian Empire in its current state as the residents of Area Eleven, which was once part of the Empire of Japan, but unlike they, who seek to change it through ineffectual rebellions, I, as an imperial prince, see myself as possessing a unique position from which I can change the Holy Britannian Empire for the better, in the most insidious way possible–from within." He took a breath before continuing. "I sensed in you a free spirit who also wishes to see this dominated world change for the better, and so I gave to you a chance to be part of the group that _effects _that change–specifically, my personal force, Army Group vi Britannia, which will soon be deployed to the E.U. under the jurisdiction of my older brother, Schneizel el Britannia. Moreover, I must see my forces to victory, and I lead from the front. But while I lead, I must know my younger sister, Nunnally, is safe from any and all attempts by my family to harm her. This would be where you come in, not just as a member of Army Group vi Britannia, but as my second knight. Nunnally is not yet of age, and so she cannot choose a knight–Hell, I only got to choose Jeremiah here, who has been a friend and confidante since the death of our mother, Empress Marianne, because of what happened in Orléans–and so I need some reassurance that she will be adequately protected. I ask you to help me to guard and protect the one who is most precious to me in the world, Lady Stadtfeld. Will you help me in this endeavor?"

She was silent for several seconds, before shaking her head. "It's Kallen to you, your highness. And yes, I accept your offer."

Lelouch smiled. "Excellent. Welcome aboard."

* * *

_December 7, a.t.b. 2017_

Kallen sat in her room in the Aries Villa, holding in her hands the brooch that marked her as her lord's second personal knight, in the midst of her packed luggage. Lelouch had informed her that right after his birthday celebration that night, they would be assigned to Area Eleven as preparations were being made for the invasion of the Chinese Federation, and, as she had when she had heard that her older brother, Naoto, was killed in action, she sat now to remember the day when she had taken this post, and to strengthen her resolve for what was to come. "Remember, Kallen, you had your choice, and you chose Stadtfeld over Kōzuki, not because he ordered you to, but because he offered you the choice, which you made freely and of your own will," she reminded herself. "You can't back out now, when the going gets tough. You've got to see it through to the end, for Naoto's sake."

It was officially three years since she had been knighted, and a year since her actions safeguarding her lord in battle on the E.U. front earned her the place of Knight of Eleven amongst the Knights of the Round. Remaining loyal to Lelouch had gotten her status and respect, and guarding Princess Nunnally was really no trouble at all, and could be quite a bit of fun, as they discussed her brother in great detail–almost as if they were gossiping in between her lessons, to which Kallen escorted her faithfully day after day. Now it would be time for her and Jeremiah to switch off, and Jeremiah would now be the one doing that job for her, so that she would have the duty of fighting. _Fighting other Japanese… Even if I _did _choose the Stadtfeld name, this isn't going to be easy for me._

Still, Prince Lelouch would not have chosen her to go on this assignment with him if he thought her incapable of accomplishing the mission objective, and she was loath to prove his faith in her wrong. _If he believes I can do it, then I can do it, _she thought to herself, tightening her grip upon the brooch.

A knock on the door startled out of her reverie. She got up and opened it, and in the doorway stood Lelouch, clad in casual clothing. "May I come in?" he asked.

"Of course," she replied, moving out of the way and allowing him to walk in.

"So, this assignment to Area Eleven," he began, sitting down on the bed and patting the space next to him. She sat there as he offered, and then he spoke anew. "I realize that it might be difficult for you. Would you like to talk about it?"

She smiled gratefully. "Yes. Thank you, your highness. I would like that. I would like that a great deal." _No matter my doubts, and whatever comes to pass, if Prince Lelouch believes in me, then I have to believe in me, too._

* * *

_December 9, a.t.b. 2017_

"The Britannian convoy will be passing this way in about ten minutes," informed General Tōdō from within his customized Akatsuki-type Knightmare Frame, Zangetsu. "Our objective is to intercept it and procure its contents–contents so precious that a transport so heavily armed and escorted must be organized to protect them."

"Roger," replied Suzaku from within his since-repaired and upgraded Lancelot Conquista. _I've got to do better this time,_ he thought to himself. _For the sake of everyone… _His pride still smarting from the beating he had taken at the hands of the Black Prince, Suzaku tightened his grip on the control yokes of the Knightmare Frame, almost strangling them before he remembered that he wasn't supposed to do that.

"Britannian Retrieval, go!" commanded Tōdō.

Through his Factspheres, Suzaku could see an apparition atop the largest truck–an apparition of a young-looking girl…

* * *

"Lelouch! So good to see you!" cried Prince Clovis, arms wide to receive his younger brother. "When Father told me to expect you, I was overjoyed! I'm so sorry I couldn't make it to your birthday celebration, but you know how it is with all this bureaucracy! Bartley did the best he could to help me, but still, I…"

"It's good to see you, too, Clovis," replied Lelouch, flanked by Kallen on one side, and on his other by the Black Knights' First Squadron Captain and Zero Squad member, Lord Li Xingke. "I trust that you have been doing well?"

"Well, I…" Clovis was interrupted by an explosion coming from the Shinjuku Ghetto, which drew the attention of all of them. The Third Prince took out his phone and called General Bartley, asking, "Where the Hell did that explosion come from?!" A moment later, his face turned ashen, and he closed his phone as he turned to his brother. "Bartley said that General Tōdō and the remnants of the Japan Liberation Front are here, attacking the convoy carrying the results of Code R…"

A cruel smirk appeared on Lelouch's face. "Well, if it isn't the so-called Miracle Worker of Itsukushima, come from licking his wounds. I'm going to _enjoy _this." With that, he pulled up his mask to cover the lower half of his face and turned around. "Prep our Knightmares for launch. _We'll _take care of this rabble."


	5. Chapter 5: The Battle of Shinjuku

_December 9, a.t.b. 2017_

Explosions and streams of hadron cannon fire marked the clash between the Japan Liberation Front and the Britannian force known as the Black Knights. Gareths were swarming over the city, but the Zero Squad, which consisted of First Squad Captain Lord Li Xingke's Shen Hu, Zero Squad Captain Lady Stadtfeld's Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. Eight Elements and two Valkyries–customized, matching, Lancelot-based Knightmare Frames used by Second Squad Captain Lady Liliana Vergamon and Third Squad Captain Lady Marika Soresi–besides the twelve other Float-equipped Vincents with which the Zero Squad's various other members had to deal, stayed close up on the Fourth Prince's distinctive Gawain. The site of the battle would be, as Lelouch noted, the Shinjuku Ghetto, according to his Druid System's cartography module; he smiled wolfishly–not at all unlike a shark, in actuality–beneath his mask as he thought of the prospect of matching wits with General Tōdō Kyōshiro once more, and perhaps the pilot of the white Knightmare, the stolen Lancelot. "All forces, close in on Dispatch Point Sigma," ordered Lelouch. "Surround the enemy and hem them in. We'll herd them like sheep to the slaughter."

[Yes, your highness!] replied his men.

"Liliana! Take the Second Squadron and approach from the west! Marika, take the Third and circle back around to take them out from the east! Xingke, you and the First take these rebel scum out from the north!" he called out in rapid succession. "Kallen, the rest of the Zero Squad and myself will take point and approach from the south. From there, we'll hammer them from all angles, and we'll cut them to pieces before they use any underground escape routes. And even if they do get down their little rabbit holes, our Druid Systems will be able to track them through the tunnels."

[Yes, your highness,] replied Liliana and Marika in unison.

[Understood, your highness,] said Xingke.

[I hear and obey, your highness,] said Kallen.

Three of the members of the elite Zero Squad peeled off of the flying formation, and the others moved to adapt to the new number of Knightmare Frames. Lelouch kept an eye on his cartography module's display as his soldiers' I.F.F.s registered, showing him their progress as they fell back, regrouped, and then surged forward, cordoning the JLF forces. It was at that moment that he received a communication on a private channel from the Viceroy himself. "What is it, Clovis?" asked Lelouch. "I'm kind of busy right now, if you haven't noticed."

[I am placing all my devicers under your direct command, including Lord Kewell,] said Clovis from his seat in his command vehicle. [The JLF seems to be after some…rather _sensitive_ cargo, given the contents of the convoy they just ambushed. It is imperative that you see it recovered at once, for both our sakes.]

Lelouch's eyes widened. "_That _was the convoy that was assigned to release C.C.?!" he cried. He stopped himself before going further, regaining his composure as he closed the distance between himself and the Japanese Gekka Frames that were down there, spreading chaos, lowering his Knightmare to street level as he did so. "Then you are correct. It is imperative that she be recovered immediately. I will see it done. Split your Knightmares into two forces and then dispatch them to these coordinates," he said as he released to him the location that he had in mind for this. "They will be a valuable contingency."

[Understood,] said Clovis, cutting off the line.

"Clovis, you put me in a difficult position," said Lelouch to himself. "But no matter; I'll just have to make the best of it and come out on top, as I always do." At that moment, he touched down to the blacktop, deploying his landspinners as he did so, and then racing through the city, his Zero Squad at his heels. At high speed, they hit the JLF forces, and Lelouch raised his Knightmare's hands, firing his Slash Harkens and destroying six of them simultaneously. He turned and slid past them, firing his Hadron Cannons as he did so, then turning and firing at the forces behind him, annihilating them, too. He smirked again, this time bloodthirsty, as the first pangs of adrenaline hit him. "Like chasing rats through a maze!" he laughed. "Now then. _This _is going to be _fun…_"

* * *

[General Tōdō! We can't hold out! We're being pressed from all sides! ARGH!]

"What?! Ohgi, what are you facing?!" asked Tōdō.

[It's the Black Knights! They've got us pinned down! We _have _to retreat!]

"The Black Knights?! Here?!" This was the worst-case scenario. And it was all happening at once. "Second Battalion! Kusakabe! Divert your Gekkas to reinforce Ohgi's! We need to press the Black Knights back!"

[I can't, General!] cried Kusakabe. [We're being pressed, too! And there's more! The Black Prince is here! He's destroyed half of my forces already! We can't…UNGAH!]

"Kusakabe! Kusakabe! Dammit, Kusakabe!" shouted Tōdō. Kusakabe was dead, and Tōdō knew it. "Men! We're going to support Ohgi!"

[But that'll leave our center undefended! Prince Lelouch is coming from this direction! We need to hold him off if we want to stand any chance at all! Why not send Tamaki?] asked Takiyama Makoto, his aide.

"It's Tamaki," replied Tōdō. "We need him to secure our right flank anyways. We can't spare anyone! Dammit!"

[Send me,] said Suzaku. [Send me against the Black Prince.]

"No! You lost against him last time! Dammit, this was supposed to be an easy mission!"

[You have to trust me. I can do it.]

"No!"

[Why? Because of who my _father _is?! I need to bring honor to my family–to the Kururugi name! And besides, what choice do you have?!]

Tōdō hesitated. "You're sure you can hold him off?"

[Positive,] replied Suzaku.

"Then I shall allow it. Lancelot Conquista, back up Kusakabe's forces!"

[Yes, sir,] said the young heir to the Kururugi line.

"I am most definitely going to face censure for this, but it's the only chance we've got! Men, on me! We're supporting Ohgi!"

[Yes, sir!] they all replied.

"Let's move!"

* * *

_Geass…the Power of the King…_ thought Suzaku, going over everything the mysterious girl with the green hair had said. _Now it's mine! And with it, I can protect everyone!_ With that in mind, the Lancelot Conquista came before the Black Prince and the Zero Squad, halting their advance.

"Well, if it isn't the pilot of the Lancelot," called Lelouch through the Gawain's speakers. "Unfortunately, I don't have the time to play with you right now, so…Kallen!"

"Yes, your highness," replied a female voice from inside the red Knightmare with the enlarged silver arm.

"Take care of him, please."

"Yes, your highness," replied the one named Kallen.

_That's Lady Kallen Stadtfeld, the Knight of Eleven!_ thought Suzaku. _But it doesn't matter at all! With my Geass, I can beat her!_ He dodged out of the way of the two Slash Harkens she sent his way, then grappled with her as she charged him, and he was pushed backwards against his will, his landspinners screeching in protest as he made to retaliate for it. He felt his Geass activating, lighting up his left eye as he forced the Guren's arm back while managing to dodge out of the way of the silver hand that came for his head. He knew enough about the famed Red Lotus Knight to be able to predict what would happen if that large arm caught him–that, and Rakshata on occasion spoke of what she considered to be her greatest achievement at length, including complaining about what 'that dreadful Earl of Pudding' did to it when she was done. He knew that if she caught him, that he was toast, and so he danced out of the way, allowing her to stumble for a moment before she regained her footing, launching herself at him as he managed to get a Master Vibration Sword between himself and her.

He lashed out with the MVS in his other hand, but missed; she reached up with her Radiant Wave Surger to grab the arm, but he spun out of the way. She fired her long-range option, and he dodged out of the way. She swore, grabbing her Knightmare-sized combat dagger in time to parry his strike and duck out of the way of his other one. Of course, this confrontation had the unfortunate side-result of allowing his main opponent to get away, but that only instilled in him a sense of urgency to finish this duel as quickly as he could manage so that he could stop them before they got to General Tōdō.

She riposted, reaching for him, but he danced out of the way on his landspinners, then pirouetted, slashing once, twice, thrice, and each time she avoided and retreated. But when he leapt up, launched his Slash Harkens and whipped around in a kick, she made a mistake that took out her leg and damaged the last emitter on her left energy wing. Her down, he dodged out of the way of her retaliation and headed on ahead to stop the prince from getting to the center of their line and crushing the Japan Liberation Front's Britannian Retrieval Task Force entirely.

"Hey!" cried Suzaku, taking to the skies and firing a single Slash Harken at the vacating form of the Gawain. "Come here and face me, you bastard!"

The Gawain turned to him in flight. "Ah, so the white Knightmare's come to play, has he? Then come on. Let's play!" taunted the prince. "You all go on ahead! I'll handle this duel."

"Yes, your highness," replied the pilots of the Vincents.

Prince Lelouch banked and made a turn that would have ripped a larger aircraft in half, then flew down to the city. "You coward!" shouted Suzaku, following him on his high-speed chase. He fired his VARIS, which was among the designs Rakshata had stolen from the Britannians with whom she had worked for several years, but to no effect, as the Britannian royal nimbly dodged it in flight. When they finally slowed down and stopped, they were in a wide-open public park, which had been closed when Clovis had had the surrounding area evacuated, in accordance with the Britannian state protocol on terrorist attacks.

"Do you like it, pilot of the Lancelot? It's a wide-open space, not unlike the jousting lists back in the homeland," said Prince Lelouch. "Here, we'll be able to fight to our hearts' content! Come, my foe! Let us duel!"

"Couldn't have said it better myself!" cried Suzaku, feeling his Geass activate again–_I guess the Black Prince is really that dangerous an opponent, that it activates as soon as I face him on equal footing…but this isn't equal footing! I can win this!_ he thought to himself–as he charged the prince, both MVSs primed and ready to strike. The prince took out Excalibur and swung it around himself as he batted Suzaku's blows out of the way and prepared a riposte of his own, but Suzaku disengaged and rushed away, cartwheeling laterally to avoid the streams of Hadron Cannon fire sent his way, then regaining his footing and launching himself at the Gawain with both his MVSs deployed forward in what would normally be a devastating thrust. The Knightmare showed its profile, the named MVS held low, and when the Lancelot's Master Vibration Swords came past him, almost clipping him, he brought Excalibur up, batting the Lancelot's armaments out of the way. Then, he riposted with a thrust to the chest that Suzaku just barely managed to avoid. They danced back to their previous positions.

"You've improved a great deal, Lancelot pilot!" called the Demon of Orléans, settling down into a balanced stance, only showing his profile to his opponent, and grasping the bastard hilt in both hands, bringing the hilt of it up to the level of his Knightmare's 'eyes', with the blade angled down. "In recognition of your augmented skills, I shall no longer hold back!"

_He was holding back before?! _Suzaku cried inside of his head. _No matter. I must prevail!_

The Gawain launched itself at him at a high speed, and it was all he could do to cross his MVSs to stop the blade as it travelled for him, and even then he had to make concessions for the black Knightmare's greater momentum, driving him back into a building, which promptly collapsed upon him as the other bounded away on his larger landspinners. Suzaku cut his way out of the rubble as it fell, unleashing a flurry of blows against the larger opponent, his Geass moving him out of the way, allowing him to dodge a flurry of ripostes that he could not have seen, and that would have crippled his Lancelot. They disengaged again.

"You avoided my ripostes! You're too good! Could it be that you have…_Geass?!_"

"What do you know about Geass?!" he thought out loud, too late realizing that he had done so.

"I see. A Geass suited to survival, then. Interesting." Prince Lelouch levelled Excalibur at Suzaku with one hand. "You are lucky, then. Unfortunately for you, my First Squadron has already secured C.C. and is now mopping up the rest of your forces. We got what we came for. So long, pilot of the Lancelot."

Behind the Gawain, a large black ship with gold trim and a few red accents, coupled with a few spots of exposed silver, flew by in the air above it, and the black Knightmare leapt nimbly onto the deployment platform. It closed, and the airship flew away, leaving Suzaku to curse and try and make his way back to the JLF in time.

* * *

"Welcome back, your highness!" greeted Lloyd in the hangar as Lelouch deployed himself out of his Knightmare Frame, leaping down to floor level gracefully. "I trust your trip was successful!"

"The Avalon is here. I'm glad," said Lelouch, chuckling as he pulled down his mask. "And here I was almost afraid you wouldn't make it."

"Not for the world, your highness," replied Lloyd. "We brought Princess Nunnally, Lord Jeremiah and the Siegfried with us as well."

"Very good," responded Lelouch. "Then I would like to see my sister. I ordered Kallen to put the word out to pull back now that we've captured C.C. I'd like to question her later, so put her into Holding Room B."

"Yes, your highness," said Lloyd. "An update: now that the Avalon has been finished, Professor Einstein and her team have been repurposed to Project Shadow, so that now it is ahead of schedule. It should be finished shortly–completion time is down to the _days_ now, with Nina's genius on our side and at our disposal."

"She does good work," Lelouch remarked, looking about the hangar.

"That she does, your highness. That she does." Lloyd chuckled, shaking his head. "They have moved production to the Pearl Harbor base. Once it is complete, it will be shipped here along with the Black Knights' first airships–besides this one, of course."

"Of course," said Lelouch. "And what should I expect as a first wave of reinforcements for my foray into the Chinese Federation?"

"The first batch is to be a group four Caerleon-class destroyers and a Logres-class battleship," reported Lloyd. "This is one of three or four identical batches that will collectively be classified the First Airborne Fleet, and with the Avalon as your flagship, will constitute the first of three such fleets to be placed under your command. The Black Knights are receiving a personnel boost."

"No good. I'll need to screen them first."

"That's been seen to. They've all been personally vetted by Princess Cornelia."

"Oh?" said Lelouch. "Well, I trust her. So long as Schneizel wasn't involved."

"Trust me, your highness. If you haven't noticed, she never trusted Prince Schneizel after he let you sortie in that Glasgow," said Jeremiah, entering into the hangar with Nunnally in tow. An orange mask covered the upper left quarter of his face, the eye within covered with an opaque white plate–a result of the recent surgery he had undergone, which augmented his body in ways that allowed him to interface with the Siegfried's systems, as per the data collected from Code R. "One valuable thing I've learned about Lord Guilford over the years is that copious amounts of alcohol render the man utterly incapable of lying. And Princess Cornelia confides a great deal in him."

"Is that so?" chuckled Lelouch as he bounded up to where they were. He knelt before his sister and took her hands in his. "Hello, Nunnally. How are you feeling?"

"I'm feeling fine, Lelouch," said Nunnally with an infectious little smile.

Lelouch smiled back at her, bringing up one of her hands and kissing it so that she would know his expression. She reddened, and his smile vanished as he cocked his head, concerned. "Are you sure? You look a little flushed."

"Yes, Lelouch, I'm sure," replied Nunnally.

"I leave Princess Nunnally in your capable hands, your highness," stated Jeremiah, bowing. "Come, Lloyd."

"Of course. I've got some last-minute adjustments to do on the Siegfried, after all."

And so the two left the siblings alone at last.

"So, are we going to be staying with Clovis?" asked Nunnally as Lelouch walked up and around her, taking the handles of her wheelchair in hand.

"That's right. Clovis has stated that he's set up a replica of Aries Villa for us to use while we stay here in Area Eleven," explained Lelouch. "Would you like that?"

"Yes, I think that I would like that a great deal," said Nunnally. "Are you going to leave again, Lelouch?"

"When it comes time to invade the Chinese Federation, I'll have to," replied Lelouch. "But I'll make sure you're well looked-after while I'm gone, don't worry."

"It's not me I'm worried about. Not really," said Nunnally. "I just want to not have to be parted with you so often. That's all."

"Then I'll take you with me after this campaign. But for right now, you need to be out of the line of fire," said Lelouch. "For my own peace of mind, if for no other reason."

"Alright, Lelouch. I promise that I'll stay out of danger, but only if you promise to come back to me," said Nunnally.

"You know I can't make that promise, Nunnally," objected Lelouch, reaching his arms around her and embracing her gently. "Every time I go into battle, there is a chance, however small, that it will be my last. What I can promise you, though, is that I will do my utmost to return to you. This I can and do promise you, my sister."

"Yes, Lelouch. I understand," said Nunnally glumly.

"But that's not for some time yet. What do you say we put our eventual parting out of our minds and enjoy the time we have, hmm?"

Her expression brightened a tad. "Yes, that does seem nice. I'd like that," she said.

_I feel horrible, _thought Lelouch, _but there's nothing for it. I said that I'd never lie to Nunnally, and I meant it. If I can be truthful with no one else in this world, I will be so with her._

The Avalon was approaching the government headquarters of the Tokyo Settlement. He gathered his composure and wheeled his sister out and into the light of the sun, and into the nest of vipers that Clovis was sure to have allowed to grow up around him. _Someone _was supplying the Japanese Liberation Front, which Lelouch knew involved elements of the Japanese military, even though the humiliated empire denied such allegations, and that someone he knew for a fact was in Tokyo. And so he would find and eliminate them, so that the invasion of the Chinese Federation, which would finally secure for him enough influence to pull off a full-blown military _coup d'état, _could proceed on schedule.

* * *

"Wait, they're…pulling out?!" cried Tōdō.

[Apparently, they retrieved their stolen cargo, so now they're leaving,] explained Suzaku. [But, General, who were you facing? I thought that you had all your bases covered! That's why I volunteered to face Prince Lelouch.]

"And not to satisfy your wounded pride as a warrior?!"

[…That was why I insisted it be me, not why I thought he had to be faced. You were pinned down, and I wanted to relieve you,] Suzaku admitted. [Now, General Tōdō, did you or did you not have her guarded from every direction from which the Britannians could have come? Please; it's imperative that we find out what happened here.]

"I did!" cried Tōdō. "Wait, we must have been attacked from behind!"

[…Can they have _done _that?!]

"With ease, it seems. It's the only thing that makes…I see what his plan _was, _now! He tried to crush us from all the cardinal directions, which means that there was one enemy force we didn't account for! They found her relatively undefended and secured her!" cried the general. "They must have used their blasted Float Systems to get around us and attack from the north, the one direction from which we could not protect from an attack if it came!"

[Well, now we know what to write on the report…]

"All forces fall back! We've been defeated!" ordered General Tōdō. "Retreat through the tunnels! We make for Japan!"

[Aw, what do you mean, 'we've been defeated'? We've got the Black Knights on the run over here!] said Tamaki.

"You idiot! They're not retreating! They're pulling out! They got what they came here for! I see what kind of opponent Prince Lelouch is now, and he's not one we can beat!" said Tōdō. "Any moment now, he'll send in Prince Clovis's troops to mop us up, and when he does, we're done! We can't hold out against that kind of force! Retreat!"

[What?! Damn it! My first battle in a command role, and it's a defeat! How am I ever going to live down this disgrace?!] whined Tamaki.

"A lost battle is not the same as an unwinnable one," said Tōdō as he climbed his Akatsuki into the unused subway tunnel systems below Tokyo–Britannians preferred monorail, apparently–his men, the personal bodyguard he had been given to make up for the deaths of his irreplaceable comrades, in tow. "We were outmatched. There is no shame in that. I'll take full responsibility."

[This was the right decision, Tōdō,] said Suzaku. [You saved a lot of lives that would have otherwise been sacrificed unnecessarily.]

"Really? Because that's not what it feels like," replied Tōdō. "Feels like I was just shown up by a child about half my age. I'm getting too old for this, Suzaku. I really am. War is becoming more and more a young man's game–Prince Lelouch is living proof of that. And I'm just a tired man who's watching this all change in front of him."

Suzaku sat back in his Knightmare as he escaped through the labyrinthine tunnels of Tokyo. _War is a young man's game, huh? What is _that_ supposed to mean, General Tōdō?_

* * *

_December 11, a.t.b. 2017_

The room was dark, but not so dark that Lelouch's sight was impaired. He saw before him a cloth-covered giant–though just above average in Knightmare terms–Jeremiah by one side, and Lloyd by the other, techs milling about it, taking hold of one corner of the tarp. They pulled the tarp away, and revealed the true object of Project Shadow to his eyes. "This just arrived, your highness," said Lloyd, tossing him a distinctly-shaped flash drive–a custom Knightmare key. "Fresh from Pearl Harbor."

"She's _beautiful…_" marveled Lelouch, grinning wolfishly. He walked up and put a hand on its shin. "Hello, my new friend. I'm sure you'll serve me well…_Scáthatch…_".

* * *

_Author's Note: _I revised it from its original version so that now it's compliant with this story's canon. I hate retconning, so the fact that I originally made such a stupid mistake gnaws at me. I hope I can be forgiven and that I've done my job in removing errata


	6. Chapter 6: Prelude to War

_December 24, a.t.b. 2017_

The surgery was going well. Nunnally had responded to the anesthesia, and the doctors were hard at work reconnecting nerve endings that gunshots had severed. This news did a great deal to assuage Lelouch's near-paranoia at the thought of his dear sister going 'under the knife,' as it were, for which Lloyd was grateful; they would ship out in a short time, having received word from Princess Cornelia that their older brother, Prince Schneizel, was preparing to make obscene demands of the High Eunuchs who ruled the Chinese Federation from their Vermillion Forbidden City, thus igniting a war between that nation and the Holy Britannian Empire, but that Schneizel didn't dare go to the table if the Black Knights were not in position and waiting to be given the order to invade, and it wouldn't do for his prince, his liege lord, to go into battle whilst distracted by the thoughts of the wellbeing of his sister. At Lelouch's side were, as ever, his two ever-faithful knights, Kallen and Jeremiah, both of whom Lloyd suspected had chosen to be there for the same reason that he had–moral support. Well, that and he had just spent the last almost two weeks fine-tuning the product of Project Shadow, the Scáthatch, and if he did much more, then he would actually cross over the border into the territory of 'too dangerous to pilot', which would be quite disastrous, as far as he was concerned. _Either way, it doesn't matter, _he thought to himself. _I'm here now, and that's what counts._

With that idea in his mind, he looked over to Lelouch, seeing his attention fixed on what was going on beyond the glass with an almost laser-like focus, which was what Lloyd had often imagined he looked when embroiled in the midst of a Knightmare duel–that, or smiling wolfishly in that way of his and laughing maniacally. As for the latter, Lloyd still remembered tuning the Gawain on the E.U. front, and coming across a black box recording of the prince fighting an enemy Panzer-Hummel; the way he had taunted that pilot with the utterance of "I came here to _laugh _at you" was submerged in so much malice that the scientist wagered that even Luciano Bradley, the Vampire of Britannia, would shiver upon hearing it. Now, strangely enough, was one of the times when he couldn't help but marvel at the duality of the young man he served; on the battlefield, he showed no mercy, and at times even seemed to _earn _his moniker of 'Demon of Orléans,' but the instant he was with those he considered family–Cornelia, Guilford, Dalton, Jeremiah, Kallen, Lady Ashford, himself, and a few others (his sister in particular)–he morphed into what the eccentric scientist theorized he truly was: the grown-up version of that boy who had had his innocence stolen from him at such a young age, and plunged headlong into the world of wanton bloodshed and vicious intrigue that was the Imperial Court. _It certainly is quite the conundrum,_ thought Lloyd. _And who doesn't love a good conundrum?_

Just then, Lloyd received a status report through his earpiece from Nina, who was the go-between of the head doctor and him. "The secondary neural connections have just been made. Primary are still holding strong. They're now beginning on the tertiary, but the regeneration seems to be proceeding as per our projections," said he. "I must say, your highness, your preparations for this project were quite extensive, to say the least."

Lelouch scoffed, his focus never wavering one whit. "Of course. It's Nunnally, after all. I take no chances with her."

"No, I suppose you don't, at that," said Lloyd. "How admirable of you it is to care so deeply for your little sister."

"She's the most important person in my life," said Lelouch. "Without her, I might as well not even be _human _anymore."

"I wonder if _she _knows that," spoke Lloyd.

"If she doesn't already, she will," said the prince. "I'll make sure of it."

At that moment, in walked Kewell Soresi, bowing low at the threshold to the observation room. "Your highness, Prince Schneizel requests your presence in Boardroom 3. It's for the purposes of planning, he says. Lord Xingke is already there."

Lelouch bit back a curse. "Kallen, you stay with Lloyd and watch Nunnally. Alert me if anything goes wrong. Jeremiah, you're with me," he said, turning and following Kewell out of the room and to the conference chamber where he would meet with his older brother and older sister. They proceeded down sterile white corridors before coming to the room itself. Opening the door and letting himself and Jeremiah in, he went to the table in the center of the room, where a holographic map of the world dominated the view, each region marked according to their political affiliations. Before him were two screens–one bearing the attractive visage of Prince Schneizel el Britannia, the other bearing the stern countenance of Princess Cornelia li Britannia–and into their midst walked Prince Lelouch vi Britannia, leaning over the table, flanked by Li Xingke and Jeremiah. "I knew this would be soon in coming, but your timing is less than opportune, Cornelia, Schneizel–Nunnally is in surgery as we speak."

"We'll try to make this quick, though we make no promises," responded Schneizel, his tone as cool as ever. "War is ever a game of risk, after all, and those risks need to be accounted for."

"I do not disagree; I merely find the timing to be less than perfect. That is all," countered Lelouch. This was why he did not make a habit of conversing with his older brother–the mind games the two inevitably played with one another began to grow old after a while. "So, what do we have ready?"

"Army Group li Britannia is stationed in Area Eighteen, ready to drive into enemy territory from the southwest," stated Cornelia. As she spoke, she manipulated her end of the hologram so that pieces that represented Army Group li Britannia, her commission, appeared on all three copies of the map.

"And my personal forces are divided between the Cambodia base and Area Seventeen," said Schneizel, representations of his soldiers appearing in Cambodia and eastern Europe, otherwise known as Area Seventeen. "They will be approaching from the southeast and the west, respectively."

"For my part, the Black Knights are readily stationed in Area Eleven," said Lelouch, a holographic image of game pieces representing Army Group vi Britannia showing up on the island formerly belonging to the Empire of Japan. "We're attacking from the east."

"So, how shall we go about this?" asked Cornelia. "I have a few ideas, but the finer points of strategy are a bit beyond my ken."

"Likewise–at least when compared to Lelouch. I dabble, but this is ultimately your forte, dear brother," said Schneizel.

Lelouch was unable to suppress a grin at this praise from his siblings–even though he didn't trust Schneizel as far as he could throw him, he still admired the unparalleled statesman his older brother was; a formidable opponent, surely. "Then here shall be the course of action we shall take," said the young Britannian prince. "Xingke has noted all of the Chinese Federation's major military bases, and our agents within its borders have filled in the blanks." On the map rose different game pieces to represent those bases. "The plan consists of three phases. Schneizel, you shall open the theatre wide open with an incursion into Russia with the half of Army Group el Britannia that is stationed within Area Seventeen. Here, they have three options: one, to commit fully to driving them off, in which case, their flank and rear are exposed; two, to ignore you entirely, in which case, we besiege them until the devastation of public order that results does our work for us; and three, to split their forces, committing partially to driving off the invasion from the west. Since three is the most rational option open, we shall assume they proceed with option three–in which case, the next step is to harass and draw out a portion of their remaining forces with the other half of Army Group el Britannia, attacking from the southeast. They have the same three options here." As he spoke, great arrows denoting the movement of the pieces, including the red Gun-Ru statuettes that represented the Chinese Federation's forces, appeared on the map with the gestures he made. "Option One shall leave the capital open to attack, their forces open to encirclement and demolition, and place victory squarely within our grasp. Should they go with Option Two, Cornelia shall swing her forces through, being mindful to guard her flank and rear, to crush the Chinese Federation on the Western Front, and I shall swing through, doing the same, to crush them on the Eastern Front. Once this is done, we turn our forces around and besiege them, defaulting to the plan for Phase One, Option Two. Phase Two, Option Three is, once more, the most rational option, so we shall assume they'll go with that in mind. In that case, it becomes a bit like a game of cat-and-mouse; their battle lines stretched thin, Cornelia will come in from the southwest and, with all the force of a hammer, break into the Chinese Federation's army at its center–break through, and then withdraw. They now have two options to progress, and one to regress; regression reverts to the plan for Phase One, Option Two, and so we won't speak further on that. Progression Option One is to pursue Cornelia's soldiers, and Progression Option Two is to reorganize their lines. In the latter case, we will continue harassing their forces until they finally break. In the former, the Black Knights shall come in, establish absolute airborne supremacy, mop up what is left, and plant the Britannian flag in the Vermillion Forbidden City."

"What if the Chinese Federation's force proves too great for my divided commission to handle?" asked Schneizel.

"Then you are at fault for stretching your men too thin, Schneizel, in which case, the Black Knights shall split and move to reinforce the Cambodian group, and Army Group li Britannia will split to reinforce the Area Seventeen group, covering their retreat. The Gun-Ru does not have the capabilities to penetrate Britannian defenses. This will draw them even further from the main force, which will result in the other halves of both the Black Knights and Army Group li Britannia hammering the capital from two different directions simultaneously. Does that satisfy your misgivings, _dear brother?_"

"It does," Schneizel conceded. "I'm impressed. You've thought this out well, Lelouch."

"It's a simple plan, but then again, the best ones often are," said the youngest general of them. "They leave room for improvisation should things go wrong. And Napoleon was correct when he said that no battle plan ever _quite _survives first contact with the enemy."

"That he was," said Schneizel.

"This plan is workable enough," said Cornelia. "I have enough men and materiel to make the division of my forces effective should things go awry, but I worry about whether or not _you_ do, Lelouch."

"If I don't, it's too late now," said Lelouch. "Operation Kaleidoscope _must _proceed."

"'Kaleidoscope'?" asked the princess.

"It's so named to describe the movement of the Chinese Federation's forces," replied the Black Prince. "I think it's rather apt."

"Perhaps," she allowed.

"In any case, I should be able to look after myself," said Lelouch. "Look, then, to your own men. I'll be fine."

Cornelia nodded unhappily. "Be careful out there, Lelouch," she said.

"I will."

"Well, I must ready my men," said she, stepping back and deactivating her screen.

"Take care, Lelouch," bade Schneizel.

"To you, as well," said the ravenet.

Schneizel inclined his head, then deactivated his own.

The strength flew out of Lelouch's shoulders, unseen tension released all at once, and he dipped towards the map.

"I would have you remember your promise," warned Xingke.

"Don't worry, Xingke," said Lelouch. "Why do you think I made sure it was the Black Knights who would take the Vermillion Forbidden City? Empress Tianzi will be within your care soon, and then you will be able to show her the wonders of the world while I go on to establish _Pax Britannia._"

Xingke nodded curtly, turning and taking his leave of the room.

"Your highness?" called Kallen over the building's intercom.

"What is it, Kallen?" asked Lelouch.

"It's Princess Nunnally, sir," said the Knight of Eleven. In that instant, Lelouch's heart stilled in his chest. "The surgery's finished. They're bringing her out now."

Lelouch's heart restarted. He bolted out of the chamber and ran back into the observation room as quickly as his legs could carry him. He got there as the door to the operating room was being opened, and slipped through the door, grabbing his little sister's hand as she came out from under the anesthetic. As she came back to consciousness, her grip tightened. "L…Lelouch?" she said. "I…is that…_really _you?"

"Yes, it is, Nunnally," he said, feeling hot, wet tears slip down his face. "I'm here."

"I can feel my legs," she said, mystified. "Why is everything…still so _dark?_"

"Pardon me, Princess Nunnally, but could you please wiggle your toes?" asked the doctor in charge of the operation.

Nunnally did so.

* * *

_January 7, a.t.b. 2018_

Lelouch stood in front of the full-length mirror, scrutinizing the reflection that stared back at him. He pulled on one glove, then the other, straightening his cravat and donning his coat, his mind occupied with facts and figures and misgivings of the coming operation. Today was the day that he and the Black Knights would ship out; a state of war had been declared upon New Year's Day, and Schneizel's forces had since already engaged the Chinese Federation's from the western front, to which they had reacted rationally, and it was only a matter of time before his soldiers came up from the Cambodia base to engage the Federation on the southeastern front. Next would come Cornelia, who he knew to be one who habitually deplored the wasting of time, and her part in his stratagem, so, in order to make sure he did not miss his cue, he was moving the Black Knights' fleet to the Britannian base at Shikine Island. It didn't sit well with him that he was leaving Nunnally so very soon after her surgery, but there was nothing to be done about it. He donned his high-collared cloak and exited his chamber, his effects having been moved onto the Avalon by porters Clovis (and Lelouch's own intelligence network) had personally vetted; stopping at the threshold, he looked back at it one last time before turning out the light and closing the door behind him.

Jeremiah and Xingke fell in beside him not long afterward, and together they walked through the opulently-decorated corridors that comprised Clovis's dwelling, and out from there to the staging area, where the Avalon sat on the landing strip, being loaded up with its complement of Knightmare Frames. Around his flagship were stationed the Logres-class floating battleships that were the flagships of each of the squadron captains of Army Group vi Britannia, and the Caerleon-class floating destroyers that served as the escort vessels for the fleet. He watched as the Shen Hu was wheeled up into the hangar bay of Xingke's battleship, and the First Squad Captain of the Black Knights split off from the entourage, heading towards the airborne vessel; next, the Knight Giga Fortress Sutherland Siegfried came past, collapsed into its loading formation, as it was loaded into the Avalon's hangar, along with the inactive, crouched form of the Scáthatch. Uniformed soldiers milled about, helping with the loading process as they could, and one by one, the Caerleons took to the skies, followed by their larger Logres charges, and finally, only the Avalon and its escort of four Caerleons remained grounded, the gangplank for his personal flagship extended. He stepped onto it, when he heard a voice call out to him.

"Lelouch!" cried Nunnally.

The prince turned to see Kallen rolling his sister out into the staging area, approaching him quickly. "How _dare_ you take Princess Nunnally onto the staging grounds! Do you know how dangerous that is?" cried Jeremiah, reprimanding his fellow knight. "Why, I…"

"Jeremiah, it's fine," said Lelouch, holding one gloved hand up. Jeremiah obliged, going silent once more. "Yes, Nunnally?"

"You're going, aren't you?" she asked as she came near, stopping before him.

"Yes, I am," he said. "I have to."

It happened in a moment–a moment that Lelouch would have never believed would occur a moment before.

And in that moment, for the first time in eight years…

…Nunnally's eyes opened.

She looked at him with her lilac orbs for several long seconds, within which the simple act of breathing escaped the prince. Then, she smiled at him. "I just wanted to see you," she said by way of explanation. "I wanted to see you before you leave me again."

"Nunnally…I…" said Lelouch, his thoughts all scattered and scrambling to regain cohesion.

Nunnally cocked her head, her smile becoming sad. "Yes, I know. Go, Lelouch. But make sure you come back to me."

Lelouch nodded; that, he could do. "I promise."

She looked to the Knight of Seven. "Look after him, please, Jeremiah."

"I will do my best, your highness," said the margrave, bowing at the waist.

"Then I suppose that that's all I can really ask for," she said, her tone melancholy. "Good luck, Lelouch."

Lelouch nodded to her, the tension in his body showing how he was visibly trying to keep his composure, and then turned around, embarking onto the Avalon, Jeremiah on his heels.

As the gangplank retracted behind the two, unheard by either of them, Nunnally said, "Good luck, my Black Prince," as a single tear rolled down her cheek.

The Avalon took to the skies, and Kallen turned, rolling the wheelchair back into the viceroy's palace.

Unseen by any, however, a pair of golden eyes observed everything from behind one of the opulent curtains, and the cover of the windows. A smile appeared on the woman's face; she had found her next contractor.

* * *

_January 9, a.t.b. 2018_

As was the case with so many others before her, the next step for Nunnally after her major restorative surgery was physical therapy. The research from Code R had done what it had been promised to do–reconnect old neural pathways and give her the ability to move her legs again–but it did little enough for her atrophied muscles for the therapy to be necessary. As her guardian, since the Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. Eight Elements had been damaged two weeks prior, and was slowly being repaired, which had fallen by the wayside in favor of preparing for the oncoming invasion–checking through the new Knightmares, loading them up onto the airships, _et cetera_–it was Kallen's duty to accompany Nunnally and make sure she made it to her physical therapy sessions safely. Likewise, it was Kallen's duty to sit and watch as Princess Nunnally struggled through exercise after exercise in pursuit of her ability to walk again. At times like this, she wished desperately to be the one to join her prince in battle. It wasn't as though she had anything _against_ the girl; she had a rapport with Princess Nunnally, certainly, but dealing with her was emotionally taxing in the best of times–to see a girl like her robbed of her sight and her ability to walk by backroom court politics broke her heart time and time again, even now, after the former had been recovered, and the latter was in the process of being regained. She knew Prince Lelouch shared similarly extensive wounds on an emotional level, but his were at least invisible…and yes, she was indeed well aware of how selfish that might well have sounded.

At that moment, she was on a bench at the sidelines, watching Princess Nunnally try to take steps on her weak legs, supported by handlebars on either side of her. The sound of her gasping out in pain and frustration filled the therapy chamber, and Kallen sat by, feeling more than a little helpless. The physical therapist had been recommended by Doctor Einstein herself, after she had gone through quite the extensive search for a suitable one for the princess through her connections to the medical world–a woman, kind of face and of voice, who seemed to know a great deal about her field. If the woman turned out to be a plant by one of Lelouch's more…_estranged _siblings, Kallen had her sidearm to deal with the problem, but she felt that it wouldn't come to that–_hoped _that it wouldn't come to that, rather. "Just…try your best, your highness," said the woman. "If you can't do it, it'll come in time."

"_No,_" said the princess, adamant. "I _will_ walk again, after Lelouch went to all that trouble to give me my legs back…"

"Please understand, your highness, we don't want you hurting yourself," pleaded the therapist.

"I won't," assured Nunnally, still as resolute as ever. "But I _will _walk again. I _must_–I _have _to…"

Kallen knew why the physical therapist was so reluctant to allow the princess to strain herself, and it sickened her. She stood. "I would advise you not to question her highness's goals," she said, "unless you wish her brother to hear of it." As the woman's eyes widened, Kallen knew she had been correct. It was no secret how close Princess Nunnally was to her brother, and it was also no secret how far her brother would go to protect her, even going so far as assassinating a number of his siblings–part of what, along with his frightening intellect and his almost unparalleled talent with a Knightmare Frame, had garnered him the moniker of 'the Black Prince.' As such, it didn't take a genius to figure out that the woman was so hesitant to push her charge out of fear of Lelouch. And if fear of Lelouch was stopping her from doing her job, Kallen figured that fear of Lelouch would be an excellent motivating factor. "You were hired to get her highness walking again. Given that, I would also advise you do so with the utmost haste, or face the displeasure of his highness, Prince Lelouch."

She nodded, her expression determined. "Understood," she said, turning back to Nunnally. "Then we shall try it again, your highness."

Nunnally nodded.

Kallen envied Jeremiah greatly, both his privilege in accompanying Lelouch on this campaign, as well as his remarkable ability to actually _enjoy _the time he spent with his liege lord's little sister. _Seeing her grow up must have been part of that, _thought Kallen. _Yet here I am, walking on eggshells around her as if she might break. Me, a Knight of the Round, in this position. Hilarious. _The thoughts were bitter, and she accepted that; they were her thoughts, ultimately, after all, bitter or not. She sat once again, watching as Nunnally struggled valiantly, taking a few steps at a time with a grunt of pain before grabbing onto the handlebars to support herself. She was getting better, but eight years of paralysis had not been kind. It was a testament to the regenerative powers of the experimental surgical techniques used, and to the princess's own resolve, that she was able to do even _this _much–and so soon after the procedure to boot. Given time, Kallen was certain that the girl would be a formidable person, perhaps as much so as her brother, if not more so.

"She certainly _is _strong, isn't she?" remarked a voice scarred with boredom from next to her. Kallen whirled around, taking in with her surprised vision the image of a willowy young girl with waist-length, lime-green hair, golden eyes, and clad in a variation upon a female Black Knights' uniform. "It's remarkable, really."

"Who the hell are you?" hissed Kallen.

"No one important–not _really,_" said the girl. "Just an acquaintance of her brother's."

"You speak of his highness?"

"Yes, although not with such formality," she stated. "However, I'm much more interested in _her, _at the moment."

Kallen bit her lower lip in thought, looking from the lime-haired girl to the princess she was sworn to protect, then back again. "When her highness takes a break, then I will allow you an audience with her," she decided at last, figuring that Princess Nunnally might want to speak with the mysterious girl herself. "Do not make me regret it."

The girl sighed in boredom. "Don't worry. I won't."

"Good."

Kallen turned her attention back to Princess Nunnally's physical therapy session, and moved to alert her newfound, unknown companion that "Her highness will see you, now…" only to find that when she looked, the green-haired girl was gone.

The instant Nunnally was wheeled into her chambers, she knew something was wrong. She let Kallen leave the room, before calling out, "I know you're in here. Please, show yourself."

From the next room over walked a slender girl with pale skin, golden eyes and long, lime-green hair, dressed in a variation upon the female version of the Black Knights' dress uniform. "Well, you got me. I'd expect nothing less from Lelouch's younger sister."

It was obvious bait, and Nunnally wasn't in the mood to start biting. "What do you want?"

"Well, such a curt greeting," said the girl instead of replying. "Why not begin with an introduction? My name's C.C."

"C.C.? What a strange name," Nunnally remarked. "I am Princess Nunnally vi Britannia."

"Daughter of Empress Marianne, correct?" asked C.C., her tone innocent, but her eyes scrutinizing.

"Yes, you _could _say that," replied Nunnally, her expression steely and unflinching, refusing to give anything away. "Now, I would know what you wish of me."

"You seem to be well on your way to walking again," said C.C. "Your resolve is admirable, doubly so for some royal girl who's spent the last eight years being protected by her big brother."

"I fail to see what Lelouch has to do with this," she snapped.

"You love your brother, don't you?" asked C.C. instead of responding. "I'd wager, in fact, that you want his affection. That's why you're so dead-set on walking again–you're worried that he'll otherwise never see you as a woman. Isn't that right?"

Nunnally flushed, but soldiered on. "Be that as it may," she said, "you will tell me what you want from me, or I will call for Lady Stadtfeld and have you removed and detained."

"Here is what I propose: I am the bearer of a power called Geass, also known as the Power of the King," said C.C., getting to her point at last. "I shall grant you this power, power enough to protect your brother, and in exchange, you will fulfill a wish of my choosing."

"A deal, then?" asked Nunnally. "Rather Faustian, don't you think?"

"If you wish to take it that way, I suppose it is," she said.

"Why me?"

"You appear to have a reason for living," said C.C., "and the strength to see your wishes through to the very end. That is why."

"What does this power–Geass–_do?_"

"It varies from person to person. Some grant the ability to read thoughts, some to stop others' perceptions of time, and anything in between. There's no way for me to know, however, what your Geass will be before you get it," C.C. replied. "So it's a bit of a game of chance."

"But it will give me the ability to help Lelouch?"

"Undoubtedly."

Nunnally turned the question over in her head, but found she couldn't decide. "I…don't know…"

C.C. smiled, and on any other face, that smile would be seen as a kind one. On hers, however, it seemed sinister and somewhat mocking, which did little to quell the young princess's misgivings. "It's a big decision. I'm fine with you taking your time. I'll still be here when you decide one way or the other."

And with that, the green-haired girl left the princess alone with her thoughts, exiting the chamber and consequently starting up a large commotion between herself and Kallen. Nunnally heeded it not, and rather sat in her room alone, contemplating what choice she would make.


	7. Chapter 7: Cry 'Havoc' Part I

_12 January, a.t.b. 2018_

'No! I will not authorise it! This is dishonourable.'

'But the Black Prince is gone from Japan. This may be our only chance!' protested Tamaki.

'While you are correct on that count, the last operation we executed in Britannian territory ended in disaster. I will not risk more men and materiel on this fool's errand,' said Tōdō, his eyes closed and his arms crossed in objection to the plan Tamaki proposed.

'They're wide open! Are you some kind of coward, Tōdō?!'

'That's _General _Tōdō, to you,' growled the commander, taking his subordinate by the front of his uniform. 'And no. What you're proposing is foolhardy. After our last attack on the Tokyo settlement, even _Clovis _will have shaped up. We'll be facing armed resistance, and a lot of it. And what would we even gain that wouldn't just be repaid in kind immediately thereafter?! We can't hold Tokyo against the Black Prince! And a hit-and-run attack will just give Britannia and him an excuse to exterminate us and finish their conquest of Japan!'

'The princess,' stated Suzaku calmly as he walked into the war room. 'We can gain the princess.'

'_What?_'

'Princess Nunnally is the one closest to Prince Lelouch. All we need to do is capture her and hold her hostage, and we'll be able to act with impunity. He won't risk her getting hurt, and we gain a valuable bargaining chip in the process,' explained the Prime Minister's son solemnly, and without hyperbole.

Tōdō still shook his head. 'I won't authorise such a detestable act.'

'You won't have to. My father's already given me command of the operation,' said the pilot of the white Knightmare as he walked up to the holographic map in the centre of the room. 'You and the Zangetsu, and your bodyguard, will merely secure our exit route. Tamaki, Katase and the remainder of Kusakabe's forces under Commander Kōzuki will strike as part of a three-pronged offensive. The purpose of it will be to draw out Clovis's security forces, leaving the government bureau, for all intents and purposes, unguarded. It should be simple to slip in there with the Lancelot Conquista, secure Princess Nunnally, and get out; the three forces will converge with me and cover me as we get out of the Tokyo settlement. General Tōdō, your forces will attack any pursuers we might have at our backs, covering our retreat.'

'To think I trained someone capable of such dishonourable tactics…'

Suzaku's green gaze turned hard as he looked at his teacher. 'I have faced our opponent twice now, and lived―that's more than any other living person who does not serve him or is not allied with him can say. And if we are to defeat him, then we must acknowledge one thing: there can be no victory against the Black Prince if we continue to play by the rules of conventional warfare. He is a strategist and devicer completely without peer or parallel, and he surrounds himself with similarly capable people. The Black Knights are one of the most elite forces of the Britannian military for a _reason,_ General. When did we forget that?' Suzaku shook his head. 'Playing by the rules is playing into his hands, _sensei. _We cannot win if we are abiding by the same rules the Britannians do. Our duty is victory at all costs, and we will require it if we mean to survive for much longer than we already have as a sovereign nation, even _if _we are stripped of our former glory and humiliated by an empire that will soon control two-thirds of the world. Clinging to honour will only secure our annihilation, and if we wish to take so much as a single step forward, we must be willing to do whatever it takes to achieve ultimate victory, even if it _does _tarnish our honour and every standard of decency we have set as warriors in order to do so. It's our only shot at coming out of this _alive, _let alone_ prevailing._'

'Is survival worth it if we lose our identity, our dignity as warriors in the process, and stoop to a level lower than even Britannia is willing to reach?'

'Our dignity is already lost, _sensei. _We lose more and more with every day that passes with Britannia still in control of most of our empire, with every true-born Japanese that bends the knee to become Honorary Britannians, with every one of our loyal countrymen who die in ghetto purges, who live in squalor to die of hunger or disease, or submit to the grasp of Refrain,' said Suzaku, as gravely as his relatively young voice could manage. 'And only time will tell if it is worth it. But I will say this: if we are not willing to go as far as we need to go to win, then all the deaths we have had amongst our ranks since opposing Britannia will be in vain. The sacrifice of Urabe, Asahina, Chiba and Senba will have been for nothing. Do you want that, General Tōdō?'

Tōdō stalked over to him, absolutely livid. 'You _dare…?!_'

'Yes, I _do_ dare, _sensei. _I dare because I need you to understand just how much is at stake here. Do you want to leave not even a footnote in the annals of history? Do you want the Four Holy Swords to be lost and forgotten to time as the Britannian war machine gradually consumes more and more of the world, and more and more people are forced to bend the knee and give up their names, their very pride as nations? The only way to prevent that from happening is to secure victory against Britannia, and as long as the Black Prince remains alive while we continue to attempt tactic after tactic of conventional and guerrilla warfare in the hopes that we can achieve the barest _fraction _of our former glory, _that will not happen,_' stated Suzaku. 'My plan, General Tōdō, is the best hope we have of achieving the smallest _hint_ of something that tastes like victory―that is not simply surviving, a mere matter of breaking even. So I ask you: am I the _only one _willing to get his hands dirty to do his duty to the Land of the Rising Sun, the Empire of Japan? Or will you cast aside your honour, every iota of your foolish pride, and stand with me against Bishamonten himself?'

The two men stared at each other in silence for a long time after that.

* * *

_14 January, a.t.b. 2018_

If the Chinese Federation had one advantage in the battle against the Holy Britannian Empire, it was their numbers. Given the mass-produced and low-quality nature of their fourth-generation Knightmare Frame, the Gun Ru, they could field millions of them at any given time, and like Roman legionaries of antiquity, their pilots were not trained with individual skill in mind, but in the effort to make them act as a more cohesive unit, coordinating instinctively to devastate their by far technologically superior enemy with nothing short of overwhelming force. Given time and adequate commands, the hordes of Gun Rus the Federation could field would wipe out any force, even if it was the most technologically-advanced and professional army since the Prussians of a century prior, led by the three most devastating commanders that nation could field. From aboard his airship, General Shang felt confident that no matter how much the White Prince, the Witch of Britannia, and the Black Prince all hammered away at them, they could survive and retaliate with their far superior numbers―making up for lack of quality with quantity.

Of course, Army Group vi Britannia, better known as the Black Knights, being the first military force to field solely Knightmare Frames, would prove an issue, as they alone might be able to, with their several thousand strong devicer corps, be able to survive the onslaught of Gun Rus, and to make things worse, they had only received word that the Black Knights were on their way to Luoyang and the Vermillion Forbidden City after the General Staff had committed their forces to fighting off incursions from both Second Prince Schneizel from the north and southeast, and Second Princess Cornelia from the west. These were expected―it was the Prime Minister and Chief General of the Empire, after all―but what was _not _expected was for the Chief Strategist to commit his forces _himself; _when Prince Schneizel's secondary force had struck from Cambodia, the General Staff had been certain that that had been the extent of their strategy, believing it had been one of the simple but effective battle plans Prince Schneizel was known to utilise in his conquest of the E.U.; now that they knew that the Black Prince was behind the scheme, however, it all made sense.

And they had almost played right into his hands.

Thankfully, the High Eunuchs had authorised the deployment of the Chinese Federation's new airships and a sizeable detachment to deal with the strike team being sent against them. As with all other things they produced, these airships were mass-produced, and what they lacked in manoeuvrability, they made up for with the kind of overwhelming force with which the nation fought their battles and won their wars. And with the airships being so numerous that they blackened out the skies, they were certain to shred the Britannian airships when they came into range; sustaining significant losses, of course, but at least the Black Prince's advance would be halted. That, and General Shang thought it fitting for himself to be the architect of Prince Lelouch's first ever defeat.

'Airship sightings are confirmed. Multiple Caerleon-class destroyers and Logres-class battleships sighted. One Avalon-class at the fore, most likely the flagship,' stated one of his officers on the bridge of his own flagship, the _Hei Long._

'Fire a warning volley,' ordered the general, a smile creeping onto his face.

The front lines of ships opened fire with their high-velocity cannons, and the line ceased its inexorable progress.

'They're retreating!' cried another.

_Something's not right…_ thought Shang. Despite his wish to claim victory, he was a rather avid student of Sun Tzu, and so knew how his enemy had worked previously on the field of battle. He was no McClellan, given to retreat at the slightest provocation; what game was he playing…?

Suddenly, as the airships retreated out of sensor range, a blip appeared on the radar.

'General, we have contact!' cried the first officer to speak. Suddenly, an explosion shook the airborne fleet, and one of their ships went down, smaller explosions rattling its frame until it hit the ground, creating a grand conflagration as its sakuradite drive system went critical. 'Enemy is a single humanoid weapon and an unidentifiable IFF coming at us on our left flank! Contact lost with the _Da Dao! _It's a Knightmare Frame, sir!'

_There you are, you bastard…_ 'Open fire!' ordered the fleet's commanding officer. 'Bring it down!'

* * *

As the first ship went down, Lelouch gave a shark's smile from beneath his mask. He _did _so love it when things went according to plan. 'Jeremiah, _divide et impera _is the order of the day. You go around their right flank and rip them to shreds.'

[But…your highness!] exclaimed the bionic Round. [That means you'll…]

'I can handle the diversion on my own,' the prince interjected, cutting his Knight of Honour off. With that, he switched off the feed, and focused on the battle at hand, taking firm grip of the control yokes once again. System overviews and subsystem status reports flashed across all his instruments as his Factspheres took in the image of the Long Dan-like vessels of the Chinese air fleet, the Druid System's overlay giving him more detailed schematics of the type of mass-produced death-trap his enemy was fielding against superior Britannian units. He looked over to the screen that detailed the status of his Knightmare Frame's various armaments, and took note of how many rounds were left for his personal artillery weapon―a customised, Knightmare-sized Raketenpanzerbüchse, better known as a Panzerschreck. 'It seems I'm going to have to make every shot count,' he said out loud. 'So, in other words, business as usual.'

Unlike several Knightmares more recent than the Gawain, the Scáthach was not equipped with a fortress mode; it was, instead, more akin to the Z-01 or Kallen's personal Knightmare, in that unlike the Gawain, which, as much as he loved it, had been built with long-range sniping in mind, being in essence a proof of concept for the Hadron Cannon as well as a way for Cornelia to be certain that he would be as far away from combat as possible, the Scáthach was built around Lelouch's preferred approach to Knightmare combat, which was much more mêlée-focused than the unwieldy Gawain would permit. Having said that, the Scáthach did have many advantages that would keep him out of harm's way on the battlefield, and he employed a few of them now as his Druid System detected that the Chinese ships had achieved a target lock.

Deftly he wove his way through the stream of bullets and H.V. rounds, easily finding openings in the net as the fleet struggled to coordinate and compensate, being unused to fighting in three dimensions as they were. The Gun Ru complement showed their firepower as well, joining their ordinance with that of their motherships, but as the Gun Rus were stationed upon the step-pyramid structure of the airships and could not fly themselves, the efficacy of such a stratagem was somewhat limited, and Lelouch's new Knightmare responded far better than the Gawain ever had, much to his absent-minded approval. Rather, he was piloting as a secondary task, far more concerned with lining up his next shot. When the Druid System marked his target, he aimed accordingly, breathed in deeply, then exhaled slowly, and fired his weapon.

Another airship went up in a grand conflagration, plummeting down to the desert below. Now the other airships were worried, and began firing missiles. Lelouch dodged the first few volleys almost on instinct, and was well on his way to lining up his next shot, when his Factspheres registered that those same missiles were still coming after him. Biting back a vexed sigh, Lelouch executed a barrel roll, which caused some of the missiles to perform a rolling scissors manoeuvre, but due to the lack of coordination, they collided against each other and exploded. He then put his Knightmare into a hard climb, performing a few ailerons as he did so, causing yet more to collide and detonate. This, coincidentally, put him in the perfect position for his next target, the lock on which he had maintained, and he fired again.

The Panzerschreck round ripped through the airship's paltry bridge defences and destroyed it, and with the nerve centre of the ship eliminated, it pitched forward alarmingly. Aiming to finish it off, he finished the hard climb with a steep dive, gritting his teeth in a feral grin against the force of the absurd amount of G's his body was being compressed under; the remaining few dozen missiles followed his steep curve, tracing him as he dove toward the airship. He closed his eyes, listening to the rush of air all around him outside his cockpit as he plummeted, and at the last second, his eyes opened and he pulled up, the missiles slamming into the airship, more than enough to destroy it. The hail of missiles continued, and he streaked past airship after airship with them, their lack of IFFs causing them to wreak havoc on the lines of the Chinese flotilla, even as with yet more, he lined up targets and fired off perfectly accurate snapshots, which racked up even more kills for him. There was another objective he was attempting to perform, however, and as he began his tenth strafing run through the Chinese Federation airborne fleet, one of his instruments bleeped, displaying the survey to be complete.

Smiling to himself, Lelouch contacted Jeremiah, who was similarly wringing destruction upon the rear of the fleet while their backs were turned and their sights were set upon the Black Prince and his brand-new custom Knightmare Frame. 'Jeremiah, it's me. I've identified the enemy flagship. I'm sending the target data now. I've only got three shots left for my Panzerschreck, so we'll need to make this count. Take out the flagship and the rest will lose cohesion; easy pickings for our own fleet.'

[Understood, your highness,] responded Jeremiah, all business.

'Here's the plan. I will continue to draw the enemy's fire, emptying my weapon. Once that is done, you will finish it off with a single shot from the Balmung from below. Is that understood?'

[Yes, your highness.]

'Good. Once that's done, we will withdraw, and leave the rest of the fleet to be destroyed by our own airships attacking from the flanks. Then we will proceed onwards toward the Vermillion Forbidden City. Black Prince, out.' With that, he terminated the communication, and, executing a wide Immelmann turn, the Scáthach screamed through the air towards the enemy flagship itself.

* * *

On board the flagship, the _Hei Long, _General Shang looked on in horror as his officers continued to shout pieces of data at him.

'Enemy is closing in!' cried one of them. 'It's moving at three times normal speed!' The ship rocked dangerously, and shook violently. 'Severe damage to sensors sustained! Unable to get a read on the target anymore! Weapons are firing blind!' reported the officer, before his console exploded, throwing him across the bridge to the opposite wall, where he impacted with a sickening crack, then slid down to the floor limply. Another explosion sent the ship careening, and several more consoles exploded, the overload causing panels to come off of the ceiling and live wires to plummet and writhe on the deck, causing cuts and burns on several other officers.

One dragged herself to the diagnostic console. 'General Shang, the main engine room is down! Switching to auxiliaries!'

Shang moved to bark orders, but the sight in front of the bridge stopped him dead, wide-eyed and astonished.

At first, his view of the Knightmare Frame was obscured by panels of golden energy. Then, they extended outwards in one great burst, showing themselves to be large feathers of a pair of energy wings, five feathers on each such wing. The Knightmare Frame itself was not nearly as tall as the Gawain was said to be, being far more akin to the size, if not the mass distribution, of the Knight of Eleven's Knightmare Frame―little more than four and a half metres in height, he was able to guess―and it was remarkably slender. Its Landspinners presumably folded up into the legs, its feet were akin to the greaves of a European knight of old, while its hands were akin to claws, though not at all oversized like the primary armament of the Guren. Its colour scheme―black with golden trim, complete with a set of scarlet eyes set into its head, which almost resembled an _oni_ of Japanese folklore, though devoid of a mouth and bearing a single horn atop its strangely-shaped ebony-coloured cranium―confirmed for the general exactly who the pilot was; namely, Lelouch vi Britannia himself, the Black Prince. Upon its back were a large set of the aforementioned energy wings, as well as a strange-looking polearm, and perched upon its shoulder was a strange missile launcher, altogether unlike the Britannian bazooka. Altogether, it appeared as though an agent of King Yan had come for Shang that day.

The Black Prince's newest custom Knightmare Frame almost lazily brought up its rocket launcher, lining it up _precisely_ with the bridge, and fired.

Shang, to his credit, went to his intensive fiery death with dignity.

* * *

Lelouch climbed into a loop as the Siegfried unleashed the special energy cannon, which, in reference to the name of the Knight Giga Fortress, was codenamed 'Balmung'. It ripped through the Chinese Federation flagship, finishing it off and destroying it utterly. It did not crash to the ground, but exploded in mid-air, and shrapnel from it, as well as the force of the blast, quickly did in a few of the surrounding airships. Their job done, Lelouch and the Knight of Seven quickly withdrew back to the Avalon, as the Caerleons and Logres did their jobs in finishing off the Chinese taskforce. And as he guided the Scáthach back into the Avalon, he smirked to himself beneath the cloth of his mask. _Now, there's nothing but smooth sailing between us and the Vermillion Forbidden City…_

* * *

Princess Nunnally was troubled. That fact was abundantly clear to Kallen in the days following C.C.'s introduction to her liege lord's younger sister.

At first, she was willing to overlook, and perhaps even treat as a positive the idea that the princess's great strides in her physical therapy were due simply to a resolve that reminded her of Prince Lelouch. But as she grew accustomed to the expressions the princess would make with her newly-reopened eyes, she noticed that there was quite a bit of turmoil roiling about in their lilac depths, making her feel intensely guilty for not just shooting the mysterious green-haired woman on the spot, for all the good that would have done, what with her immortality, and all. As the heels of her boots clacked on the resounding marble floors of the residence atop the government bureau, which was modelled after the Aries Villa with which she had become so very familiar since the beginning of her time as one of the two personal Knights of Honour of the Black Prince, even before she had joined the Knights of the Round, she reflected that the fact that the princess was somehow conflicted over what the bratty green-haired immortal had said to her disturbed her greatly, and for reasons beyond those of the mere protectiveness of a knight over her liege's sister; she was sure that Lord Guilford had never been quite that concerned about what perturbed Princess Euphemia, after all. In a way, Nunnally had almost become part of her family―the little sister she never had―and Lelouch's devotion to the princess made her view the protection of the girl as an action of her devotion to _him. _

Right now, she was on her way to see the princess in question in her own chambers, giving the passing Britannian soldiers a customary salute in response to their own gestures of respect to the Knight of the Round as she walked through the surprisingly large palace. Aries Villa, after all, never seemed quite so large from the outside; when one was indoors, however, the true labyrinthine nature of the palace became immediately evident. Nevertheless, years of being on alternating shifts guarding the place had long since forced her to become familiar with the layout of her prince's home, and so she knew exactly where she was going to get to Nunnally's room.

Which was why she was startled enough to not suppress the instinct to draw and level her sidearm, an extremely well-maintained Mauser C96, when a certain green-haired woman strolled out of a corridor which was supposed to lead precisely nowhere and stood in front of Kallen.

The woman's head turned, her amber eyes still dull with boredom, but glittering with the faintest spark of patronising amusement as she regarded the startled Round, staring right down the barrel of the semi-automatic into her blue eyes. Chagrined, Kallen lowered her gun slowly, and regained her ability to speak. 'What are you doing down here?!' she demanded in a harsh whisper. 'This wing is private!'

'I'm here for the same reason _you _are, Lady Stadtfeld. To speak with the princess,' said C.C. in her normal droll, uncaring tone of voice, which for some reason always put Kallen's teeth on edge with irritation. 'I don't have all eternity for her to make a decision on my offer, you know. Hearing her response sooner rather than later would certainly be quite helpful.'

'Wait, what offer?' Kallen asked, confused. 'Are you the reason she's so distracted?'

'I wouldn't know, but I would imagine such. After all, it's not every day you're offered the Power of the Queen,' replied C.C. in an offhanded manner. 'It's a heady proposition, I know, but I do believe it's her only option. The only question is: will _she _see it that way?'

'You're offering her Geass…' Kallen whispered in something approaching horror.

'Got it in one. Perhaps your lord trusts you more than I gave either of you credit for, Lady Stadtfeld. But somehow, I doubt it.' C.C. chuckled mirthlessly. 'I take it you don't approve? It's _her_ choice, after all, isn't it? I'm certain Lelouch would let her choose on her own if he were in your place right now.'

'What _his highness _would do in a situation like this is irrelevant,' stated Kallen with an edge of hostility, bringing her Mauser up again to get a bead on the immortal. 'What _is _relevant is that _I_ am charged with the wellbeing of her highness in his highness's absence, and so that is what I'll do.'

'And you think that little antique is going to kill me?' C.C. asked in disbelief.

'It won't kill you,' conceded Kallen. 'But it _will_ slow you down!'

Just then, klaxons screamed throughout the Aries Villa. Kallen looked up in horror; she knew what that meant.

'It would appear that the government bureau has been breached,' stated C.C. 'If I had to guess, they're here to kidnap the princess and use her as a hostage so as to control _his highness. _So the question becomes, what are you going to do, Kallen? Will you shoot me and have Prince Clovis's forces cut to ribbons by the intruders as you secure your little princess, or will you turn around and support them, leaving the princess unguarded? What to do, what to do…'

Kallen, knowing that time was of the essence, made a split second decision that made surprise register on even the unflappable immortal's face. 'The Gawain,' she said. 'It should still be in the private hangar. Take Nunnally and get out of here. The key should be in Nunnally's nightstand, and the access code is MS06S. I'll hold off the intruders.'

'So…you're just trusting me with the princess's life?'

'Will having Geass keep her safe from harm?'

'No. But it will give her power and agency unlike anything she's ever known,' C.C. replied honestly.

'Then that will have to be good enough.' With that, she holstered her gun and turned, bolting for the hangar wherein her newly-repaired and tuned-up Knightmare would be held.

For some reason, during her previous battle with the stolen Lancelot, her Knightmare had gone unresponsive due to some sort of glitch in the new control systems, and so she had lost a leg. Thankfully, Lloyd had provided enough spare parts that it wasn't really an issue, and moreover, he had taken the time to not only iron out the glitches with a few well-placed software patches, but to review her combat data and tune the Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. Eight Elements much more precisely to her own combat profile; as such, she was looking forward to showcasing what she was _really _capable of. Knowing that, however, didn't make leaving Princess Nunnally behind with that strange green-haired woman any easier, but she put it out of her mind for the time being, switching into the combative state that had gotten her recognised as not only the Knight of Eleven, but also as quite possibly the greatest devicer amongst them, by popular rumour; now, however, she had an opportunity to see for herself if this was really the case.

As soon as she stepped into the hangar, Kewell Soresi stepped in to speak to her on a matter of which she did not truly care; instead, she barked out, 'Status report, Lord Kewell.'

'It began an hour ago,' he began, far more harried by the state of events than he was at Kallen's brusque tone. 'JLF forces attacked the Industrial District, the harbour, and the power grid simultaneously; we dispatched our security forces into three contingents to take care of the incursion, as is protocol. Then, a few minutes ago, we picked up a much smaller fourth force, which broke through the government bureau's defences with ease and attacked from the air. They've breached our defensive perimeter and are now advancing on the bureau itself. IFFs and visual confirmation have confirmed the Lancelot Conquista at their head.'

Kallen nodded; it was much as she expected. 'I have reason to believe that the assault on the bureau is the true purpose of their attack, and that their target is Princess Nunnally. As such, as the Knight of Honour of Prince Lelouch vi Britannia, as well as the Knight of Eleven, from here on out, _I'm_ taking command of this operation. Kewell, you will take your personal forces and engage the Lancelot's escort, keep them out of the way. _I _will deal with the white Knightmare.'

'Yes, my lady. Shall we have our security forces withdraw to the bureau?'

'No. That will only free them up. Have them press the attack. If we win, we will have, I suspect, destroyed a good portion of both the JLF and the remnants of the Imperial Japanese Army in one fell swoop,' said Kallen.

'At once.' Kewell bowed, then went about his orders.

Kallen, for her part, gazed up at the ready form of her personalised Knightmare with relish. Without the proper time to change into her bodysuit, she simply climbed into the cockpit and went through her pre-deployment checks, which she had been through hundreds of times before in hundreds of different situations far more dangerous than this one. Having done that, she sealed the cockpit hatch and had her Knightmare take its position. 'Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. Eight Elements, now deploying!' she called out, and her Landspinners squealed as she tore out of the catapult and into the field, deploying her energy wings and taking to the air when she cleared the roof of the hangar. Her systems identifying her target, she pushed forth at full tilt, and joined the battle.

* * *

A red and purple streak came flying through the air, and as his Geass warned him of his oncoming doom, he retreated as quickly as he could in order to stay out of the way of the Radiant Wave Surger. In a tangle of robotic limbs, he streaked through the air in acrobatic manoeuvres that rattled his bones and would have made him nauseous, had it not been for all the adrenaline pumping through him at that moment, as the main armament of the Knight of Eleven streaked through the air on a cable, almost like a Slash Harken. Too surprised to check the Crimson Dragon's advance, his escorts evaded frantically as her escort made itself known. Ordinarily, a squadron of flight-enabled Sutherlands would be no big deal to the IJA's flight-enabled Gekkas, but the state of disarray the Round left them in as she tore through their ranks caused them to react more so than to think, and as such, the Third Prince's Sutherlands got the proverbial drop on them, setting the pace as they broke off and engaged with the superior Japanese Knightmares. As such, Suzaku was left without support to deal with one of the greatest devicers that Britannia had ever fielded―which was a diplomatic way of saying 'one of the greatest devicers period', but technicalities…―and found himself immediately on the defensive, struggling to reorient himself.

'So, we meet again, white Knightmare,' stated Lady Stadtfeld as she held her arm out and the Radiant Wave Surger shot back into place. 'Unfortunately, my lord is not here, so you cannot do battle with him. Instead, you must deal with _me!_' With that, she drew her fork knife, and as was the case with the vast majority of Britannian armaments designed for mêlée combat between Knightmares, its change from grey to a deep red, almost purple, was proof enough that she wielded a Maser Vibration Sword―or rather, dagger, but Suzaku was hardly in a position to force the issue. Suzaku drew his own Maser Vibration Swords and activated them, changing the steely hue to scarlet as he readied to charge. He did so before the Crimson Dragon could, and nimbly she parried his first MVS, catching it between the prongs of her weapon, and grabbed the second with the Radiant Wave Surger. He ejected it as it began to boil, ignoring his readouts when they registered the weapon as "lost", and attempted to pull his other sword back; however, as if toying with him, at the exact half-way point of the blade, she snapped it neatly in two. Growing frantic, he retreated; she pursued, and with her far superior speed, she planted herself directly into his path, delivering an elbow into the back of his Knightmare's head as she drove her knee into its chest. The hastily-erected Blaze Luminous just barely held, and Suzaku managed to kick out of her hold, spinning wildly back into proper posture.

_My MVSs are gone, _thought Suzaku. _Mêlée's almost out of the question. Time to gain some distance._ With that thought, he fired his Slash Harkens at the red Knightmare, and it danced out of the way of each one with grace, but it also distracted her long enough for him to be able to climb. As his Slash Harkens reeled back, she streaked after him, but he brought out the VARIS, and combined it with his unit's backpack to form the Hadron Launcher. He fired it at her, forcing her to dodge, and then retreated more. What followed was a harrying chase through the skyline of the Tokyo Settlement, filled with bursts of hadrons as he took what snapshots he could, frantically flying from one to a good position to set up the next. He knew she was playing with him, gauging his skills, and getting him as far away from the government bureau, and thus, his mission's objective, as she could. At the same time, however, she wasn't holding back, and as such, he was at a distinct disadvantage in that his skill was far inferior to hers, so much so that it caused him to wonder if, for all that Prince Lelouch had dominated him in their previous encounters, it was at all possible for the Crimson Dragon to be more powerful than her master.

Then, all seven and a half metric tonnes of red Knightmare slammed into Suzaku's chest as she charged him head-on. He attempted to gain some range once more, but with an exclamation of 'Oh, _no, _you don't!' the Round shot above him, flipped in mid-air, and delivered a brutal axe-kick directly to the Lancelot Conquista's integrated Float System, causing it to go careening back down to the ground, landing in a crater several metres wide.

'You disappoint me, _thief,_' she spat. 'I would have hoped the one who gave my lord such trouble to have been worth his time. As it stands, however, you are not fit to be stepped upon by his boot. And so it falls to me, his knight, to eliminate you. Prepare to die.' And with that, she levelled her Radiant Wave Surger at him, and as the emitter powered up, Suzaku knew that he would die.

Then, suddenly, an idea popped into his head, courtesy of his Geass. It was ambitious, perhaps―mad, certainly―but by the same token, it was his only option.

He fired all of his Slash Harkens at once, utilising his Harken Boosters, and, caught by surprise, the Crimson Dragon was caught in them. Before she could cut the cables, however, he reeled them back in, putting all his remaining power into this one gambit. It drove him upwards, and as he drew closer at an astounding speed, he delivered a kick into the Knightmare's midsection that drove it back a pace or two―one final show of resistance.

She grabbed his leg, and it boiled; he ejected it, and it exploded. Then, she grabbed his midsection in her massive golden-grey claw, and spoke. 'That was an ingenious manoeuvre. You had potential. But now, I'm afraid it's all over for you, _Warrant Officer Kururugi Suzaku._' His eyes widened as she correctly discerned his identity. 'All…hail…LELOUCH!'

The Knightmare bubbled, and the heat became intolerable, even as his Geass directed him to eject immediately―a directive he obeyed out of reflex more than conscious thought. _So that's the power of a ninth-generation Knightmare Frame… No, that's the power of the Crimson Dragon! _he thought as he shot off into the air…only to be caught by a familiar black Knightmare. '_Sensei?!_' Suzaku cried.

'Bit off more than you can chew, have you, my stubborn, foolish _deshi?_' chided Tōdō, even as the Zangetsu cradled the Lancelot's ejection pod.

'Ah. So, new combatants enter the fray!' came the commanding, aristocratic voice of the Knight of Eleven as the red Knightmare came shooting at them. However, a new Knightmare came between them, generating a magenta shield made out of interlocking hexagons. The experimental eighth-generation Knightmare Frame Shinkirō had taken the field, which meant only one thing: that its pilot, Kōzuki Naoto, had come to deal with his Britannian sister.


	8. Chapter 8: Cry 'Havoc' Part II

_14 January, a.t.b. 2018_

Prince Lelouch vi Britannia smirked to himself beneath his mask as the commander of the _Avalon,_ a minor noblewoman named Captain Annerose Kircheis, Ninth Baroness of Sacramento, announced the airborne vessel's escalating proximity to Luoyang and the Vermillion Forbidden City, the capital of the Chinese Federation, such as it was. Schneizel's and Cornelia's forces were being held up by their own battles, which, in the ordinary course, would cause him to try to be imaginative in how he was going to make his stratagem survive. But as he had the First Airborne Fleet to field with impunity, not to mention the Siegfried and the Scáthach, as well as the personnel upgrade he had gotten just prior to the commencement of Operation Kaleidoscope, he had no issue with how he was going to deploy his forces and single-handedly win Luoyang; not that he was much of a glory hound, granted, but rather that it was the only way in which they could avoid wasting the advantage they had gained in this theatre by waiting for Cornelia and Schneizel to kick their forces into high gear and get into their pre-appointed positions for the siege of the city.

'Tell von Müsel and Li to take their detachments and surround Luoyang,' Lelouch instructed. 'They are to bombard the city, destroying their defences and disrupting any organised attempt to repel us. They are to deploy their Knightmare complements thereafter. Then, put me on a video feed with the whole fleet.' The communications officer did so, and looked at him, nodding her head. Lelouch nodded his head in response, and stood to his full, quite substantial height. 'My comrades, we are about to partake of a great battle! Luoyang stands before us, open and all but defenceless. Together, we shall crush them under our landspinners! The High Eunuchs have seen their last sunrise! Today is the day that the Chinese Federation shall fall!' He cast his arm out to punctuate, and cheers resounded throughout the fleet at this reassertion of the Chief Strategist's famous resolve. 'The enemy is no match for us! They are brave men, all; let us go now and give their tales a glorious end! All hail Britannia!' The chorus of 'All hail Britannia!' was a sentiment repeated throughout the fleet, and then he cried, 'Prince Lelouch vi Britannia commands you―now all of you―commence the operation!'

'Yes, your highness!' resounded his soldiers throughout the fleet.

As he commanded, the flanks of his formation broke off and came within firing range of Luoyang, surrounding it and boxing it in, before letting loose with missiles and HV rounds, ripping through the city's defences. Admiral von Müsel's ships encroached on the city's centre, dealing significant damage to the city's immensely outdated defence infrastructures, and Li's forces tightened up the formation in time for the centre of the fleet to punch through and begin launching Knightmares from their catapults. Gareths and Vincents painted in the same black-and-gold colour scheme shot out of their ships and took to the skies with their Float Systems engaged, the Vincents drawing their MVSs as they sped forth, picking their targets and closing to engage swiftly, while the Gareths, being not as well-trained as the main core of the Black Knights who now piloted the mass-produced eighth-generation Frames, stayed back a ways and elected to provide fire support for the Vincents with their built-in hadron cannons. Lelouch looked on as vast swaths of the crimson Gun Rus of the Chinese Federation were wiped out in a mere instant by superior Britannian pilots and materiel, and smiled. His smile widened into a grin as he spotted Liliana Vergamon's and Marika Soresi's custom pre-production Vincents, both taking command of their forces and racking up their own substantial kill counts. The pair of friends were amongst the most bloodthirsty devicers he had ever commanded, matching that of Luciano Bradley, whose lust for bloodshed gained him the title of Knight of Ten and of the Vampire of Britannia, not to mention the Genius of Homicide, though granted, Lelouch, Kallen, Jeremiah and others besides were more skilled devicers, and oftentimes much more skilled as combatants, but Bradley was also a master of dishonourable tactics and sneak attacks, as Kallen had found out when she first faced off against him, kicking off a long and bitter rivalry that even now continued to persist, much to the displeasure of both Jeremiah and the Knight of One, though it only amused Lelouch, who had no great love for the arrogant, borderline psychotic and in truth all-around insufferable man, but then, he was a bit of a blood knight himself, and so he could relate, making the only one of his generals with whom he did not get along very well Li Xingke. But Lelouch hoped that once the Vermillion Forbidden City was in the hands of the Holy Britannian Empire―which was neither holy, nor Britannian, nor truly an empire―that the Chinese devicer would be able to refocus himself upon upholding his end of the bargain they had struck oh-so-long ago, when he had been captured and held as a P.O.W., a fate from which Lelouch was happy to save him, that bargain being the turning over of Empress Lihua Jiang, better known as Tianzi, the Child of Heaven, into his custody, in return for aiding Lelouch in establishing that which he called _Pax Britannia, _and helping him ascend to the Imperial Throne in Pendragon, all for the sake of the girl _he _wished to protect. Regardless, in order to accomplish this, the eight High Eunuchs had to die, which was a task he was all too happy to give Li, given how odious those men were. They were a cancer, a corruption that need be excised lest it metastasise and eliminate the Britannian efforts to raise the standard of living in the newly-christened Area, which would benefit the common people as well, at the cost of their own battered and beaten national pride. Given that, it seemed to Lelouch that the Chinese Federation's conquest―_annexation, _he corrected himself―might well result in some of the most peaceful Areas the Holy Britannian Empire had ever had within its borders.

The central force came within range of the Vermillion Forbidden City, and with a few cruise missiles and a couple of H.V. rounds, Lelouch ordered, 'Tell General Li that the target is open. He is free to sortie and engage.'

'Understood, sir,' said the communications officer.

Seven minutes later, the Shen Hu's IFF came online, followed by an escort of Vincents and a supporting force of Gareths. At this point, the Britannian Knightmares were so numerous that, had the sun been up, they might well have blocked it out through sheer volume. But now, the majority of the Vincents were on the ground, the Gareths in the sky to achieve further air superiority, and the suppression and acquisition of the city of Luoyang was nearly complete. Seeing this, Lelouch took immediate action, standing from his throne.

'All ships, cease fire. All Knightmares are to converge upon the Vermillion Forbidden City at once. Annihilate any who dare stand in your way. I shall take direct command on the ground. Captain Kircheis, you have the bridge until I return.' With that and a swirl of his cloak, he left the bridge, not pausing to acknowledge his subordinate's bow of obedience. He had barely entered the stables when Jeremiah fell into step beside him. The pair continued towards their destinations in silence, parting and climbing into their steeds when the time came, the prince eschewing his cloak as he drew close, which was then retrieved by a nearby aide before it touched the ground.

Jeremiah sat in the Sutherland cockpit of the Siegfried, and as the columns in his spine connected to the control system of the Knight Giga Fortress, the hatch closed above him. He closed his eyes as the interface uploaded itself into his brain, and waited as the Siegfried was taken over to the catapults. Lelouch situated himself comfortably in the leather seat of the Scáthach, and when he was positioned to his satisfaction, he palmed the key to the Knightmare and slid it into its slot as soon as he was secured within the cockpit block, entering in the activation code―MSN04―and watching as the screen came to life. The Britannian cross was shown, and upon the screen read 'Custom High-Performance Commander Type 9th Generation Knightmare Frame "Scáthach"', the full name of the Knightmare, and beneath it the motto 'Aut Vincere Aut Mori,' which, he felt, fit quite well, all things considered. He toyed with the control yokes as he was brought over to and set into the central catapult, and when he was ready, he closed his eyes and waited.

'K-1, you are cleared to launch. Good hunting, sir.'

His eyes snapped open, and he charged the Knightmare at such a high acceleration that for a moment, the tires of his landspinners squealed against the rails of the catapult. Then, it shot forward as a bullet out of a gun, flying out of the catapult; at the last possible second, the prince engaged his energy wings, and, accompanied by the Siegfried and the rest of the Zero Squadron, he soared through the air, quickly outpacing his fellows.

As he was the first out, Prince Lelouch was the first on the ground. His landspinners deployed and he sped through the breach at the head of the Vincents of the Zero Squadron, marked such by Lelouch's personal insignia of a king chess piece. Sighting his first target, he positioned and launched the harken boosters on his shoulders, then firing off the ones on his wrists at other targets, each harken destroying a few of the Chinese Knightmares in one hit. Moving to support Li Xingke, he followed him into the Vermillion Palace. At this point, the Chinese devicer removed himself from the Shen Hu, dropped to the ground, drew his _jian _and ran through the corridors of the palace. However, before he could do so, Lelouch's intuition caught something strange.

Drawing the polearm on his back, the grey arrowhead-shaped oversized spearhead clasping together and turning violet, he manoeuvred his Knightmare between himself and the large humanoid Knightmare that broke through the rear wall of the entrance hall and made to kill Li, catching its sword strikes expertly on the shaft of the spear. A pause, and then he twirled the spear, turning the swords away. 'General Li! Go on ahead! I'll deal with _this_ one!' Lelouch called through his loudspeakers. The man nodded sharply and continued running. 'Now, what precisely are you?'

The Chinese Knightmare seemed to be a natural progression, albeit a very large leap, from the Gun Ru. It was about as large as the Scáthach, and strangely bulky, but he could see from the way it moved at first that it was surprisingly agile for its size. Thus, he could conclude that either 1) the Knightmare was made from strong, but low-mass, materials, or 2) the Knightmare was very lightly armoured and not all that survivable; Lelouch found the latter to be much more likely, in his own estimation. It wielded a pair of swords which, to the prince, seemed to be their attempt at creating something to rival Britannian MVS technology. It was coloured the vermillion of the Guard's Gun Rus, and was about as ugly, if more advanced and roughly humanoid. From the devicer's lack of response, Lelouch could only suppose that he either didn't understand Britannian, which was quite unlikely, or that he had been told to remain silent; or he had _been _silenced. As Lelouch flipped his spear around into a ready position and the mysterious Chinese Knightmare moved to assume an attack stance, he swore that he would find out which it was, if only to sate his own curiosity on the matter.

The Chinese Knightmare attacked first, slashing wildly and unpredictably in an attempt to catch the Black Prince off-guard. Said Black Prince, however, was far too coolheaded for that to even come close to working. So, instead, he parried and he dodged with his spear whirling, and when he saw the slightest opening, he jabbed it forth, and it shattered the Chinese Knightmare's hand; a Knightmare's flip and a descent of the spear it carried cut the arm clean off. Obviously surprised and shaken, the Chinese Knightmare attempted to gain distance, firing off 60mm rounds from guns in its head, which Lelouch deftly avoided as he closed the distance. 'Do you see, dog of the High Eunuchs?! This is the power of Rhongomyniad! How _dare _you make me waste its first use upon such a shoddy piece of _rubbish! _Such an indignity can only be repaid with _death!_' he cried, punctuating his pronouncement by batting wide the Chinese Knightmare's attack, twirling the spear, and thrusting the MVS spear through the cockpit block of the Knightmare Frame. There was a gush of blood as the Chinese devicer was bisected at the waist, and then the Knightmare went silent and slumped to the ground. Lelouch retreated, and the Chinese Knightmare exploded as its energy filler ruptured, and twirled his spear again to splash the blood off of it before it had a chance to congeal.

'Li, where are you?' Lelouch called into his communicator.

'The High Eunuchs are dead. Tianzi has been secured,' replied Xingke.

'Excellent,' said Lelouch. He then switched to the channel that would speak to the entire military, as well as his loudspeakers. 'Soldiers and knights of Britannia! Luoyang has fallen and is in our grasp! Operation Kaleidoscope was a success due to your efforts! Here do we plant our flag, and claim this land as an Area, a subject nation to our glorious Empire! All hail Britannia!'

The chorus was taken up as the Britannian Knightmares hunted down and exterminated what was left of the C.L.A., making their victory complete. Throughout the streets of Luoyang could be heard chants of 'All hail Britannia! All hail Britannia!', but then, halfway through, someone started chanting something…_different._

'All hail Lelouch!'

'All hail Lelouch!'

'All hail Lelouch!'

The chant gained traction, and afore long, all who had been crying 'All hail Britannia!' now cried 'All hail Lelouch!'

And at this, an evil smile bloomed on the beautiful countenance of Lelouch vi Britannia.

* * *

Kallen looked on in horror at her comm screen. In video, no more than a quarter metre from her face, was the face of none other than Kōzuki Naoto, her confirmed dead brother.

Well, apparently the reports were a little nebulous on that score, it seemed…

'Hey, Kallen. Long time, no see,' he said tenderly.

'N…Naoto?! Y…you're _alive?!_' she cried.

'In the flesh,' he responded. 'Thanks to the JLF…'

Kallen's heart hardened. 'As I suspected. You're with _them…_'

'Kallen, why don't you come over to our side? You don't belong here. You're not one of them; you're Japanese,' Naoto pleaded. 'I don't want to fight you.'

'So, I should, what, stand aside and let you take Princess Nunnally? I don't think so.' She chuckled bitterly, closing her eyes and shaking her head ruefully. 'No; you may be my brother, but I have my post to keep.'

'Why do you serve the Britannians? Why are you wearing their uniform? Why become a Knight of the Round?' asked Naoto.

'Because it allowed me to better serve Le…_his highness,_' she replied.

'So, the rumours were true. You _are_ his knight, aren't you?'

'I am.'

'But why, Kallen? Why serve that…that _monster?_'

Kallen barked a harsh laugh. '"Monster", is he? You understand _nothing, _Naoto. But enough talk; have at you!' she cried, charging the Guren into the Knightmare her IFF told her was called Shinkirō's shield of interlocking hexagons and making to grab at the Knightmare itself. The shield deflected her attack, and she danced away as the Shinkirō slashed with its katen yaibatō. It slashed once, and then again, and on the third time, she caught it with her fork knife and dashed forth to grab at the arm that held it. It began to boil, but she was forced to disengage to avoid the hadron blasters it had mounted beneath its wrists. It tried to knee her, and when that didn't work, what should come out of the knee but a _slash harken?_ Kallen had heard of some strange places to put one's weapons, most of them from Luciano Bradley, but she had never heard of slash harkens concealed in the knee. Such a specialised requirement for use rendered it almost unusable in combat! _And yet, despite all these questionable design decisions, I can't seem to pierce its…shield… Damn, I'm slow on the uptake sometimes… _'I see Doctor Chawla finally managed to perfect the Absolute Defence Field Territory. Interesting,' Kallen observed dismissively. 'But one thing it doesn't do too well is diffuse force!' With that, she executed a spinning butterfly kick that struck the damaged arm of the Shinkirō, which was crushed beneath the strain, becoming unusable. It was ejected in short order, and the Japanese Knightmare took to a Fortress Mode similar to that of the Tristan, becoming akin to a fighter jet so as to manoeuvre more effectively in airborne situations such as this one, given how finicky Rakshata's Air Glide System could sometimes be.

Once he had the higher ground, which she gave him, considering that with her superior flight capability, she could close the distance before he did anything too damaging, he called out, 'The Absolute Defence Field isn't the only thing she managed to perfect!' And with that, a cavity opened up in its chest, and a prism came streaking out of it, followed by a beam of light that the prism refracted, which wrought devastation upon the settlement below. She nimbly avoided the beams, and jeered, 'What a cheap trick! It can't damage _me!_' With that, she grabbed the Shinkirō's chest, saying, 'Sayonara, Aniki' with tears in her eyes before charging the Radiant Wave Surger into the Knightmare.

Nothing happened.

_A software error at a time like this…?!_ cried Kallen within the confines of her own head as she tried again and again to trigger the Radiant Wave Surger and destroy the Shinkirō. She looked ahead, and noticed the centre of the chest of the Shinkirō beginning to glow ominously, looking on in horror. _Oh, fuck me…_

'I wish I could have convinced you, Kallen. I wish I could get to know the man you love so much that you would try to kill your own brother for his sake. But as you have your duties, so, too, do I have mine. Sayonara, imōto.' With that, he fired off the Shinkirō's chest cannon…

…Directly into and through the Guren.

_Lelouch…_

* * *

_15 January, a.t.b. 2018_

It was early morning by the time that Cornelia and the rest of Army Group li Britannia arrived in Luoyang. Cornelia drove her new custom Vincent into the city, painted the deep purple of her Gloucester, and flanked by Dalton and Guilford, both of whose Knightmares bore a similar, albeit more muted, shade of the colour. As her guard, she brought with her the elite Gladstone Knights, a vanguard of sorts before the occupation force would arrive, serving only the purpose of relieving Lelouch so that he might return his forces to their base on Shikine Island. She entered the Vermillion Forbidden City unchallenged by any of Lelouch's devicers, and came to dismount her Knightmare before the temporary new government bureau.

She made it as far as the door before the main office before she heard it.

'_NO!_' shouted Lelouch's voice, overtaken with rancour. 'I swear, Clovis, for your sake, Kallen had better pull through, Nunnally had better be found, and you had better have some usable intelligence on who hit us and where they went. If _any _of those three conditions _are not met, _you _will _regret the day you _put my knight and my little sister at risk!_'

Cornelia stepped rather gingerly into the office, her two adjutants doing their best to remain inconspicuous. 'Did something…happen?' she asked hesitantly.

Lelouch was hunched over the table, his shoulders quaking with anger. 'You…could say that,' he hissed. He straightened with visible effort, running his gloved fingers through his hair with a shaking hand. 'The Tokyo Settlement was attacked last night by the JLF. Their sole objective was Nunnally's capture. My knight, Lady Stadtfeld, nearly died defending her, and now Nunnally's gone missing herself, as has the Gawain.'

'If they have the Gawain…' Cornelia began, shocked, concerned and a tad horrified.

'Yes, that means that they have the Druid System, the hadron cannon… The Gawain is hardly cutting edge, of course, but that doesn't mean they can't learn anything from it. Of course, that's assuming they didn't already have those technologies before they attacked,' he said absently, as if he wasn't really concerned about the state of events surrounding the Gawain in the slightest. 'Cornelia, you and your forces secure Luoyang. The CLA's military power has been effectively broken, so it should be child's play to mop up the rest of the opposition. As for me, I'm returning to Area Eleven immediately. My knight needs me, and Nunnally's out there. That, and I'm _itching _to show these IJA bastards _just _what happens when you _earn my ire…_' Such malice went into his words that Cornelia became at last concerned for what had happened to her determined but kind younger brother since he had embarked on this path of blood for him to end up this way, so violent and bloodthirsty and vengeful… He was becoming, slowly but surely, a monster.

'Lelouch, let me handle it,' she pleaded. 'It should only take a few days…'

'No,' Lelouch replied immediately. 'It's my responsibility. And besides…' He began to chuckle bitterly. '…Lloyd must be salivating over combat data from my new Knightmare. I ought not disappoint him, don't you agree?'

'I don't want you destroying yourself over this!' she cried.

'_That's none of your concern!_' Lelouch shouted back.

Cornelia flinched, and then her gaze hardened. 'Very well. Go ahead. Become a demon. Embrace your epitaph. But know that once you do…' she said, pointing her sidearm at him. 'Once you do, little brother or not, I _will _hunt you down and destroy you utterly.'

Lelouch came up to her, grabbed the barrel of her pistol, and aimed it directly over his heart. 'Then shoot here. Shoot here, and head it off. Be done with it. It's only noble, isn't it, _Cornelia?_' he challenged. 'If you think you can, kill me, right here, right now. But if you can't, then do us both a favour and _stay out of my way._'

Cornelia tried; through massive force of will, she _tried_ to pull the trigger.

But she couldn't.

Not on him.

And he knew it.

Sensing that he had won, Lelouch turned and brushed past her, storming out of the room and down the corridors, while Cornelia stood, frozen. 'Your highness, why don't you sit down? I think you need it,' said Guilford, his voice thick and soft with concern of his own. 'Lelouch is likely just frightened. I doubt he meant what he said.'

'He's no child, Guilford. He's a soldier. One with a taste for blood,' she said gravely as she sat down in a nearby armchair, as her knight had suggested. 'I never approved of him beginning his military career at such a young age. I wanted him to learn compassion before he learned ruthlessness; else, I feared that our lives of constant battle might destroy the motherless child that I took in and raised alongside Euphemia. But Schneizel took that decision out of my hands, and now here we are.'

'I'm certain he'll pull through more or less intact, your highness. We just need to have faith in him,' said Dalton.

'I hope you're right, Dalton,' she said, throwing her head back and closing her eyes in a most unladylike fashion, suddenly very much exhausted. 'I hope you're right…'

* * *

_20 January, a.t.b. 2018_

The _Avalon _landed in the government bureau, and off of its gangplank with a veritable storm upon his brow came Prince Lelouch, followed by Margrave Jeremiah, whose expression was more determined than furious, unlike that of his lord. In their scabbards at his sides were a rapier and a stiletto, which announced his martial intent, and he came in full uniform, mask up to hide his face. Prince Clovis la Britannia was there to meet him in person, as would only be appropriate for a viceroy receiving the Chief Strategist of the Imperial military, regardless of familial relations or seniority in the line of succession. That meant little; the fact that Lelouch came fully prepared to _duel_ him, however―Lelouch, who was, behind Lady Stadtfeld, none other than the second-best swordsman in the empire, no less―meant a great deal…namely, his imminent death if he didn't find some way to quell the icy fire raging in Lelouch's violet eyes, and quickly.

That in mind, he eschewed the pleasantries he knew were lost on a soldier like Lelouch, and instead said to him, 'We've located the new base of operations for the JLF…'

'IJA,' corrected Lelouch, his voice dead.

'And we have reason to believe it's in Hokkaido…'

'I was already aware of that. Give me something I can use, _dearest brother,_ unless you like seeing your blood on the walls, of course.'

'Mount Yōtei,' Clovis pronounced, getting to the point. 'We have reason to believe that they're holed up in Mount Yōtei.'

Lelouch stopped for a moment, his eyes going wide in shock.

'Ha…ha…'

Then he threw his head back in full-blown, maniacal laughter.

Clovis's men flinched, but the Black Knight guards that had exited the _Avalon _stood as stock-still as prior; clearly, such outbursts were not enough to shake their faith in him. That kind of loyalty from highly-trained, elite veteran devicers demanded respect from the one who commanded it, he supposed. 'Mount Yōtei, eh?! Another volcano! How auspicious!' hissed Lelouch. 'Hear me, Clovis la Britannia, Third Prince of the Empire. You will be spared for now. Take this opportunity to get your house in order, as it were, because when I return from battle, _I shall have my pound of flesh._' With that and a whorl of his cloak, he left Clovis behind and went down into the government bureau to see to his injured, valiant Crimson Dragon. He went flanked by the Orange Knight and followed by his appointed bodyguard.

Clovis watched and greeted the Squad Captains, some of the greatest generals in the Britannian military, and some of the greatest devicers outside of the Knights of the Round. There was General Liliana Vergamon, Captain of the Second Squadron; there was General Marika Soresi, Captain of the Third Squadron; there was General Li Xingke, Captain of the First Squadron, who had the hand of an eleven-year-old albino girl in uniform; and then there was the elite Zero Squad, who was headed by whichever knight Lelouch took into battle with him at that point. Of course, only the Zero Squad actually qualified as a squad, being made up of twenty of his most experienced devicers, while the others were much more akin to corps in both their numbers and organisation. Truly, Lelouch's forces' organisation was strange in the extreme, but they were undoubtedly effective, as shown by their record of triple-digit sorties and zero defeats. Whenever the Black Knights were deployed, soldiers rejoiced at their assured victory's oncoming, as Lelouch suffered no commander to deploy his forces other than him. Hence, the more prideful and inept commanders held off on his use until their defeat was assured, in hopes of bringing the prince down with him, and inevitably, the Black Knights would turn the tables, and the better commanders used them to break an enemy that was unexpected or would cost them too many losses to take on, and again, the Black Knights would assuredly prevail. The colour scheme of black-and-gold had become synonymous with victory since Orléans, and Lelouch had become the deity and purveyor thereof, being spoken of as akin to, and eventually superior to, Cornelia li Britannia herself. Clovis had no such hope of being spoken of with such respect and reverence―and also fear, given how thoroughly Lelouch had cleaned house ever since coming under the dual protection of both Schneizel and Cornelia, going from Eleventh Prince of the Empire all the way up to Fourth in the span of one year; the rapid ascension, in fact, had been referred to by the Black Prince's enemies as the 'One Year War,' and secured Lelouch vi Britannia, the Commoner Prince, as a force to be reckoned with, and gained him his modern epitaph―and so tended to give way before superior talent, gaining him much the same reputation as Odysseus, albeit a much more hedonistic and foppish version of the same.

Sighing, his crisis averted for the moment, at least, Clovis elected to take his younger brother's advice and see if he couldn't find the whereabouts of Nunnally vi Britannia before her brother came back from the warpath he was currently on. _Time to boot up the local chapter of the Office of Secret Intelligence, _thought he. _I only hope I can make it out of this mess alive and intact._

* * *

_27 January, a.t.b. 2018_

Pain. That was the first thing Lady Kallen Stadtfeld was aware of upon awakening.

Her ribs were broken and casted; of that she was aware. Her arms were broken, her right leg with a compound fracture, based on the screws she felt, and her L-5 vertebra had come out of alignment and recently been readjusted into place. She felt the intravenous cord inserted into an artery in her elbow, pumping nutrients and enough morphine to keep her from crying out as soon as she awoke. She opened her eyes and gazed upon the world for the first time in a while; her mouth was dry and felt as if it had mothballs inside of it, or, like Marlon Brando, she had balls of cotton in her cheeks, which meant she had been out of commission for at least a week. She turned her head, and on her nightstand table, there was a bouquet of roses, red as blood, and in the chair at the foot of her bed was sat Jeremiah, asleep. She coughed, and he bolted awake at once, striding purposefully over to her bedside and giving her water to wet her throat so that she could speak. 'Jeremiah? Why are you not with his highness?'

'His highness has…business to attend to. He ordered me to stay here and guard you with my life. He thinks very highly of you. You should be pleased.' Jeremiah delivered this in a very matter-of-fact tone of voice; evidently, he had been worried for her. 'He left you this,' he said, placing the flowers on her chest and then opening the note for her to read. By way of explanation, he said, 'His highness forbade me from reading it, saying it was for your eyes only.' The note read, in an exquisite, elegant and calligraphic hand that could only belong to her beloved prince, thusly:

_Lady Stadtfeld: _(struck through)

_Kallen:_

_As my hands are shaking as I write this, I shall be brief. I would like to apologise, as I will, more than likely, not be there when your eyes finally open. We got a tip on where the IJA is located, you see, and I decided to check it out and deliver bloody vengeance upon those insolent enough to harm you and kidnap Nunnally. I will recover her, and do not worry: I know you did your utmost to protect her; I do not hold you responsible for her current status. I hope to see you up and about when I return from battle victorious._

_Get well, my love._

_Sincerely, _(struck through)

_Lelouch vi Britannia_

A little, densely-packed ball of warmth lodged itself in the pit of her stomach at that point, spreading throughout her like sunlight from the celestial orb, like sunlight heating her every extremity, the endorphins further numbing the pain. Those two little words, 'my love,' gave her hope for the future and filled her mind with light, and with resolve and further loyalty. She would stay with him until the end, and be his sword and shield for all that came to pass in the future.

After all, Jeremiah might be his adjutant, but _she_ was his knight.

* * *

_28 January, a.t.b. 2018_

The Imperial Japanese Army had been Kōzuki Naoto's home ever since the day Kallen, his beloved little sister, had gone to the Britannian side with their father, after he had taken them in after their mother died. Kallen was young at the time, so he couldn't blame her, but Naoto had never been able to forgive how Roland Stadtfeld had neglected to save their mother, and never been able to forget how he had been the first to see their mother's body, raped and murdered, on the floor of their house.

This had caused problems, such as delinquency and early terrorism, in him, as he had never felt that he could fit into the society the Britannians had built for themselves out of the ashes of the once-great Empire of Japan. When his sister decided to accept their father's charity, he and his best friend, Ōgi Kaname, had decided to make their way north into what remained of Imperial Japan, and join up with the IJA. Of course, Naoto, being the only one with loose ends, and so as to not make trouble for his sister as she integrated into Britannian society, had, with Ōgi's help, faked his own death and enlisted into the Imperial Japanese Army under the command of then-Colonel Tōdō Kyōshiro. He had been with him since that time, training in the operation of Knightmare Frames as part of their devicer corps, and had been gifted the specialised Knightmare Frame 'Shinkirō' as a test of his skills. Now, Naoto had the Shinkirō Nishiki to pilot, which he was doing as the klaxons reverberated throughout the compound. A single Knightmare had been spotted launching from one of the Britannians' blasted airships; a Knightmare that no-one recognised, and so assumed was the newest model they could field. Of course, that left two very likely options, one significantly more likely than the other: that it had been fielded by order of Prince Clovis, or by order of Prince Lelouch. Like at Narita, high artillery had blasted through the door into the compound after this single unknown Knightmare had single-handedly taken down eighty-four of their new mass-production Akatsuki Frames before they even had the time to react. The Knightmare was airborne, and far too fast to engage with the Air Glide Systems provided to anyone but the most elite of pilots, which was him. With the Holy Swords long dead, he had no choice but to pick up the slack and acquit himself well on the field of battle.

He sealed the cockpit and rapidly went through his pre-launch checks. Once he was cleared, he shot out of the hangar in Fortress Mode, peeling around the mountain at speeds that would have sheared him in half if he had had more mass, and firing a warning hadron blast at the enemy Knightmare. 'Britannian Knightmare, hear me! You are trespassing on Imperial Japanese territory! You must withdraw, or this shall be considered an act of Britannian aggression, and under international law, we will have concessions made!' he cried over his own Knightmare's loudspeaker.

The black-and-gold Knightmare's pilot laughed bitterly. 'International law? Ha! The Holy Britannian Empire _is_ international law, devicer!'

Naoto _knew _that colour scheme, _knew _those red eyes.

Their opponent was none other than the Black Prince, come to exact his bloody fee upon all of them for their transgression into Britannian territory.

Kōzuki Naoto converted from Fortress Mode and hovered in the air, prepared for a fight of epic proportions to ensue.

'…! The Shinkirō?!' cried Lelouch vi Britannia with surprise and growing rage. A communication window opened in Naoto's Knightmare, and he allowed it. The Black Prince was as terribly beautiful as the pictures had shown, even now that his hair was dishevelled, his eyes were wide and his pupils contracted, as leanly muscular as they had predicted beneath his command uniform. 'You're…you can't be…Kōzuki Naoto?!'

Naoto nodded. 'If you must have your revenge on anyone, exact your pound of flesh from me and no-one else, _Black Prince Lelouch._' He drew his katen yaibatō in preparation for the fight.

'You…your own sister… How could you…?!' the prince sputtered, still reeling. '_SHE WAS YOUR SISTER!_'

'She was an enemy. I did my duty, Black Prince, nothing more.' Naoto fired the Diffusion Structure Phase Transition Cannon at full force without using the prism at the Black Prince's new Knightmare to punctuate his point, which the royal ace dodged purely by instinct.

His eyes narrowed in icy fury, and he said, 'I see…' He drew a polearm from his back and extended the shaft to its full length, the split grey head coming together to form a purple MVS spearhead. 'Then I shall show you no mercy! _En garde!_'


End file.
